Animorphs: The Closure
by Clamina
Summary: Sequel to "The Fissure". Five years after the war, what remains of the Animorphs have finally begun to move on, but when an offer for a new adventure is given, who are we to say no? Marco/Ax
1. Chapter 1

AN: Here we are, first chapter since Aoi LawLight asked so politely :P.

If your new to this story, you need to go back and start at "The Only One". BTW, I noticed, finally, that fanfiction takes out my breaks in chapters, so ignore that random jumps in time until I can find a way to fix that.

Chapter 1

My name is Marco Reed. Maybe you already know who I am, maybe you're learning about me in school right now.

But in case you've been living under a rock, or out in space, for the last five years, I'll recap.

I am one of the six Animorphs, you know, the ones who saved Earth from the Yeerks?

Oh yeah, now you realize it. A little slow aren't yeah?

Nah, I'm just kidding. Really.

You know, I've read those history books that have our story in them. I'll admit, they're pretty close. But they do glaze over a few... uncomfortable aspects.

Of course, they don't tell you about what happens after the war. I remember reading about World War II and never giving much thought to those soldiers who had survived the war, besides how lucky they were.

Unlike my friend Jake, I actually went to a psychiatrist. We talked about everything, from my mother, to Rachel, from some of the things I had done in the war to my relationship with Ax.

Yeah, Ax. I had been thinking about him a lot in the last four years. I realized how unreasonable I actually had been, especially when not long after I shot down a helicopter with human controllers in it. I had been scared. Scared that if Ax could do that, then what would I do? His actions seemed to be an almost turning point where everything began to fall apart.

And I was too scared to go say sorry. I was scared he would reject me.

So I tired to move on with my life. And what a life I have. Almost instantaneously I had become almost as rich as Bill Gates. I'm an actor, working on a pretty popular Sci-Fi series. You'd think I'd be sick of Sci-Fi. I've had... Well a few girlfriends. Okay, a lot. I haven't been able to keep one for more than a couple of months, and there was always someone waiting there in the wings.

In the year that followed the war, Jake hit a depression so hard, he cut off from everyone even his parents, and drank himself to sleep every night. Two years ago, Cassie got married to a man named Ronnie, and for some reason that snapped Jake out it, he called my physiatrist, and managed to clean himself up. He didn't work, but the Military had begun to call him, and he was beginning to seriously consider it.

Actually, the Military had been calling me too. I never let them actually explain what they wanted, simply telling them as politely as I could that I was retired from being a soldier and it was going to stay that way.

You see, Ax wasn't the only one who got promoted. Because of our efforts in the war, each of us were given a title, our records stamped with retired. Even Ax got one, though I'm not sure if he knows it or not.

Jake was rewarded the rank of General. Cassie, Tobias and I are now Captain's, Rachel recieved Major and Ax had been given the title of Colonel, the Military stating they figured it was as close to Prince as possible. The Military didn't expect us to fight for them, as I said, we were all officinally retired, but that didn't stop them from calling.

They even called Cassie, but Ronnie is a bit overprotective of her, and soon they got the hint she would have nothing to with them.

And Tobias? Well, I hadn't seen him in five years.

Ax in four. Even Cassie hadn't seen or heard from him since he left with the fleet. Not that I blame him, Cassie made it clear how horrible we all made him feel, despite our own problems.

"Mark?" My girlfriend, Candice, whined from the other room. "Do we have to go to this ceremony?"

I hated that she called me Mark. Actually I hated everything about her.

"Actually Candice. I was thinking you just leave." I said simply, continuing to stare at the computer, tapping a symbol on my desk switching to the next screen.

"What?" a sharp reply. Her heels clicked on the floor as she entered my study.

"I said: I was thinking you should just leave. I hate your voice, I hate the massive amounts of perfume you wear, I hate your friends, I hate your parents. You're nothing but a gold-digger, and I think you really need to leave."

She stared at me, her wide mouth gaping open. "Are you trying to be funny?"

"And you're really stupid."

Something smashed into the wall beside my head, pieces of porcelain scattered around the desk.

"You asshole! You are gay after all, aren't you? You disgusting pig!"

She screamed at me, stomping around the house, smashing anything she could. I simply ignored her. I wasn't into antiques or anything so everything was replaceable.

Maybe this was why I couldn't keep a girlfriend.

The whole gay thing? Well, shortly after Ax left Earth I woke up to a newspaper article telling every little detail of mine and Ax's year long relationship in the war. The details were so accurate, I might as well have wrote it myself, every detail from how we started dating to our break up.

My parents had been shocked, my mom most of all, who had formed her own opinions of Andalite's, and placed it on all of them. In short, she didn't like the species as a whole. In the end, they ended up being supportive, especially when they realized the feelings had not gone away, but only got stronger.

I didn't write the article. I would never do that to Ax, no matter how mad I had been. I interrogated both Jake and Cassie for months, both denying fiercely each and every time. I never talked to Tobias about it, but I had hoped he cared enough about Ax to never do that. If Ax knew the story got out- well, he'd probably blame me for it.

I looked at the digital clock built into the desk, the glass reading the weather as well. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I felt a bit cheated, I believe it should have been raining.

Sighing, I pushed back from the desk, setting about getting showered and dressed in my new tux. Leaving my suite, I apologized to my maid who was cleaning up Candice's tornado, promising her double pay as I left. My limo was waiting to take me to the ceremony.

A year ago, the government seized the property the abandoned construction site sat on. This, they declared, was a historical site, where the resistance against the Yeerks began. Which was true.

Over the year, workers took down all the half finished buildings, turning the run down site into a beautiful patch of land, nice grass, a few newly planted trees and gardens. I hadn't been there in a month, so imagine my surprise when a representative from the government came to my door two nights ago telling me there was going to be a special ceremony there, and they asked me, and the other Animorphs, to be there.

I talked to both Cassie and Jake, we all agreed we would go. This would be the first time in five years the remaining team would be together, excluding Ax and Tobias.

My house was at the farthest end of the city, I bought over 100 acres of land in the forest, building my house there, the best security devices we had on Earth. Call me a bit paranoid, but I like my privacy when I want it.

"Captain Reed?" I sighed, all the people who worked for me had a sense of humor, and insisted on calling me Captain no matter how many times I told them not too.

"Yeah?"

"We will be arriving in a few moments. Shall I stop now or go around the block once more?"

I smiled. This man, Randolph, was old enough to be my grandfather. Acted like it too. He had been my driver for four years, my parents begging me to hire one after my third car accident (Thank Elfangor for the morphing powers!). There were many times where I didn't want to go to one ceremony, interview, even the really bad days at therapy and I would make him drive around while I got my head sorted out.

"No. Thank you. I'm alright."

He gave me a crinkled smile, pulling to the side of the road, placing my door by the cobblestone path leading into the site.

"I will be watching from the wings then." He said simply, turning off the ignition. Nodding I got out of the car, looking around at the people gathered. I had no idea what this was about actually, Jake and Cassie were just as clueless, but there were already four news groups here, set up behind a special line, keeping them away from the crowed of people gathered. Men from the Military and their families mingled with people who I knew used to be controllers, and their families. I was startled to suddenly spot my dad and my mom and Nora, who all waved at me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked them, surprised and I came to stand in front of them.

"A man name General O'Neill invited us." My dad said, his eyes shifting away.

"You know what his is about don't you?" I asked him suspiciously.

"I might." He shrugged.

The years after the war had been great for my parents. Nora had been found, and freed. She, my mother and father all sat down one night, and in an amazing act of kindness, Nora said her goodbyes to my father, wishing him and my mother the best. They all stayed friends though, every Sunday we all got together for dinner, even Nora's new husband joined in.

Two years ago, out of the blue, a member from NASA came to my dad, offering him a job. Which he excepted instantly. Problem was that what he was working on was top secret so I didn't get any cool stories. But still, it was amazing to see my dad in his dream job.

"Are you going to tell me?" I asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope."

"Marco!" Cassie's voice exclaimed and suddenly she plowed into me, her round belly squishing into my stomach.

"Cassie! How are you?" I said, turning to hug her properly. "Man, you look like you're going to pop."

She beamed at me, as she stepped back, folding her hands over her stomach, "No not for another two months." She said. Suddenly her husband, Ronnie, appeared behind her.

"Ronnie, man, how have you been?" I asked holding out my hand which he shook.

"I'm doing fine Marco. Trying to keep up with this one." he wrapped an arm around Cassie's shoulder, squeezing her tightly. She slapped him on the chest, blushing lightly. Suddenly her eyes lit up, "Jake!" She called, and I turned to see him, gazing around the crowd. At her shout, he looked and began making his way over to us. I pulled Jake into a hug as soon as he was near, stepping back as him and Cassie stood in front of each other, Ronnie hovering at her back.

Finally, then tension broke when Cassie reached forwards and hugged him. "It's great to see you again." I heard her whispered, and his agreement back.

They stepped back from each other smiling, as something caught my attention. I turned to look and-  
"No way." I breathed, making Jake and Cassie turn, "Look who's here."

"I found him." Cassie said, "A couple of months ago. He's been living with the Hork-Bajiir this whole time."

Tobias looked around him, catching sight of us as Cassie waved to him, he paused before moving through the crowed.

"Cassie." he said stiffly, not used to his over mouth any more, "Marco."

He turned to Jake unblinkingly. Cassie and I held our breathes, releasing them as Tobias held out a hand, and Jake clasped it.

"I will never forgive you." Tobias stated, and Jake simply nodded and they released hands.

"Well." I said, "We're all here."

"Except Ax." Cassie said sadly.

"And Rachel." Tobias said softly. We all stood in silence a moment.

"Has anyone heard from him?" Cassie asked desperately. Tobias shook his head.

"I doubt he'd ever call me Cassie." I said bitterly. Jake shook his head, but an awkward look came over his face, before he wiped it away.

"General Berenson? Captain's?" A lady with a headset and dressed in a pant suit came sliding up to us. "We're about to start. Your seats are in the front there."

"Well," Jake said, "Let's get this over with." he sighed. We moved towards the seats set up around a large podium. I didn't really pay attention when I first got here, but behind the podium was a large... Object. I don't know what it was since it was covered but it was a good 15 to 20 feet high.

Helping Cassie to her place we sat down as the large crowed settled into the seats around them. When a sufficient time passed, a man dressed in a military uniform got up behind the podium, and the crowed settled down.

"For those of you who don't know, my name is General Jackson O'Neill. I have been asked to represent the Government of the United States." He paused for a moment, "Today, we stand on the grounds were the rebellion against the Yeerks began. Today, we have restored this piece of land, and are officially marking it a historical site." He paused for the applause that rang out through the crowed. Jake and I exchanged glances, smirking to each other.

"Six children took up the fight all those years ago. Ladies and Gentleman, I'm not good at speeches, so I'll just get to the point. We are all here today to not just thank them once more, but it has come to our attention that we have not done anything for the man- sorry, Andalite, who started it all."

I heard Tobias take in a breath of air. I turned to look at Cassie, who pressed a hand to her lips.

General O'Neill gave a signal, and the large tarp behind him fell to the ground.

It was a statue. An Andalite stood, his tail raised behind him ready to strike. It looked exactly like Elfangor. In front of him stood five humans, no older than thirteen, in various poses. A smaller Andalite stood beside the figure of me, standing side by side with Elfangor. The morphing cube, carved in perfect detail, stood at Jake's feet. Along the bottom, each of our specific battle morphs were carved, along with our names.

"Shit-" I breathed, completely lost for words. I felt Cassie's hand in mine, looking over I saw her clasping Tobias', who eyes focused on Rachel's perfectly carved face.

I don't know what the General said through the rest of the speech. I started from Rachel and slowly to Ax. Memories rushing back, bringing tears to my eyes.

I snapped out by a thundering applause reached my ears, and I looked around as Cassie pulled me to my feet. Apparently, we had been asked to stand.

At the very back of the crowed something caught my attention. My throat closed up, my heart thudded as I looked harder, but couldn't catch sight of-

"Marco?" Cassie whispered to me, "Marco are you alright?"

"Ax-"


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Here you go. I'm not guaranteeing that all chapters are going to be posted this quickly, but I had nothing else to do xD

Chapter 2

"I swear Cassie! I saw him!" I exclaimed for the hundredth time. The ceremony had ended, we gave our interviews with the press, and were finally left to mingle. Each of parents came, saying congratulations, before eventually people left us be.

"That doesn't make any sense Marco." Tobias sighed, "Why would he be here, on Earth, and not tell anyone? He obviously knows we would be here."

"I doubt he'd have a doppelganger Tobias! He's pretty unique as a human!"

"General Berenson? Captains Chamber's, Reed, Fangor."

We turned to look, "General O'Neil." Jake acknowledged.

"Thank you for the wonderful ceremony, sir." Cassie said politely, and he nodded to her.

"I'll make sure to send your thanks to the President. He sends his apologies, but an important Z-space transmission with the Andalite's could not be held off."

"We understand, sir." Jake said.

"Actually, I was wonder if I could speak to you?"

"Sir," Cassie cut in, "With all due respect, if this is a job offer, I'm going to have to decline." she rested a hand on her stomach, "I have a family coming."

O'Neill nodded to her, "I understand Captain." He turned to the three of us, "I was hoping you'd hear me through? I promise it will be worth your time."

Jake, Tobias and I exchanged a look, "With all due respect, we're done fighting we made that very clear-"

O'Neill cut me off, "I'm not asking you to join any sort of combat Captain Reed. But I do have another proposition for you. Tell you what. Meet me tomorrow at the Baton Rogue restaurant for noon tomorrow. If you show up, lunch will be on me. If you don't I will take the hint and leave you be."

"Can you give us something more than that?" Tobias asked him. "Or is it classified." he finished sarcastically.

"You got it. I can tell you that you would be part of Earth's first steps beyond our Solar system." he smiled at our surprised faces. "Think it over, and I'll see you at noon tomorrow."

He walked away as we sat in silence. Cassie excused herself, going to find Ronnie.

"Well, oh fearless leader. What do you think?" I asked, turning to Jake.

"Its a little too secretive for me." He said, "But-"

"It couldn't hurt to check it out." Tobias added slowly.

"Really? You too?" I asked him, and he shrugged.

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt. We can always say 'no'."

The other two nodded and we ended up separating, saying we'd meet up at the restaurant tomorrow. I mingled in with the crowd, before slipping away back to my car. Randolph was already there.  
"That was a nice ceremony. One of the better ones we have been too." he remarked, starting the engine pulling out onto the road.

I stared at the window, staring at the statue until it was out of sight.

"Indeed sir, it was."

((((())))))

"Well, here we go." Jake sighed as he pulled the car into the parking lot of Baton Rogue, minutes before noon. "Are we crazy to be thinking about this?"

"Maybe." I said, nodding. "To be honest, I'm getting really bored with my life. My show is officially done, I'm sick of doing interviews. Who knows, maybe it'll be worth it."

"There's Tobias." Jake pointed out, a young man was shifting nervously in front of the door, looking very uncomfortable in his own skin.

"Let's get this over with then." I sighed, getting out of the car. Tobias' eyes snapped to me and he nodded as Jake and I approached him. Silently we entered the restaurant, a waitress stopping us as soon as we entered.

"Hello sirs. And welcome to- Baton-" She stuttered to a pause, her mouth gapping as she looked between Jake, Tobias and I.

"Yeah, hello. Look we're expected, a man named O'Neill should be here?" I asked, smiling charmingly at her. She blushed and nodded, gesturing us to follow her as she led us trough the tables. A few patrons paused in their conversations and eating when they caught sight of us, whispering followed.

"The gentleman is over here." the waitress said, pointing a manicured finger towards the far back corner booth.

"Thank you sweetheart." I said, smiling at her again as we headed over. O'Neill looked up, catching sight of us he stood up.

"General Berenson. Captain Reed, Captain Fangor. Glad you could make it gentlemen." he held out a hand which we all shook, before taking seats around the table.

"It'd be really nice if you stopped calling me Captain." Tobias said in a flat tone. It didn't faze O'Neill who waved a hand.

"Of course, of course. Now, I'm sure you're very curious, so lets get right too it." he reached beside him, picking up a briefcase I hadn't seen when I sat down. We watched him pull out three portfolios, placing them in front of us, taking another one out for himself, closing the briefcase and placing it on the ground.

I looked down at the emblem of the USA, a great red stamp marked 'confidential' across the front.

"Now, before we continue, I need to make one thing perfectly clear. As you notice, this project is on a need to know basis. If you read this, and decide you don't want to take part, you must sign a contract of confidentiality."

"Yeah we already understand that." Jake said impatiently. We fell silent as the waitress came over, took our drink order. We waited as she brought them, denied ordering food and watched her walk out of ear shot.

"Now, let's begin." O'Neill said, opening to the first page. I did too, scanning the page.

"As you may or may not know, Earth is running out of natural resources. Thing is, during the war, the Yeerks took more from our planet then we ever imagined, fooling the systems to think everything was not all that bad."

"They've drained us?" Tobias asked, looking a bit shocked.

"Oh Cassie would have a shit fest." I mumbled, making Jake hold back a laugh.

"Essentially." O'Neill said nodding. "We certainly do not have enough to keep Earth going for more than 50 years."

"Fuck-" Tobias whispered, staring down at the paper.

"Indeed." O'Neill agreed. "But, there is hope. With the Andalite's giving us some of their technology, designs for Z-Space engines, crude outlines for ship designs, small things to get humans off the grounds essentially. For the past 4years we have been building our own ship capable of traveling faster than light." He gave a small smile. "It will be finished in approximately 6 months if all goes right."

"You're serious?" I gapped, "I thought it would take-"

"An unofficial statement in order to keep the panic of our crisis at bay." O'Neill said, waving a hand. "This program is being run by a new department within NASA: The Kepler Mission, is its official name. The Kepler team has been assigned not only with building these ships, but also being the force who travels on them, with a few Military personal.

"The object of Kepler is simple: We find planets close enough to Earth for us to extract materials, or relocate at least half of our population on to-"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Tobias interrupted. "You're talking about invasion!"

"No, no!" O'Neill said quickly, "To be honest, I don't know the mechanics behind all of this, I'm not as Astrophysicist after all. The team on the first ship is charged with going to each of the 400 Earth like planets we have discovered close to us. Places we know the Andalites and Yeerks have not reached. A small team will be sent to the planets surface just to survey. If there are sentient species on that planet, we are not to take any resource except for those freely given. We are looking for planets that do not have a-" He looked down at the paper, "A ruling species, as the Andalite's put it."

"So, what would we be doing?" Jake asked slowly.

"You would be Team One. The first ones to be sent to a planet, making first contact. There is uh-" he coughed uncomfortably. "One more member of your team, the leading Scientist in the Kepler program to be more specific. But you'll meet him later."

Silence fell between the four of us, O'Neill's dark eyes scanning each one of our faces.

"I don't know about this." I said finally, "I can't help but keep thinking 'invasion'."

O'Neill rolled his eyes, "You will be Team One, Captain. You will be the ones who decide weather or not to stay on a planet."

"And one more person who we don't know." Tobias pointed out. O'Neill shifted nervously for a moment.

"Well you see, you do know him." he said quickly, and I began searching through the file, looking for names. "Kepler's members are still confidential. Only when you agree will you learn who they are."

"Well that helps." Tobias muttered.

"If he's right, and Earth's running out of resources-" I said slowly. "That's really bad guys. And in a short 50 years? We'll still be around then. Our kids will suffer." I turned to Jake, knowing we'd think about Cassie and the baby she was having now.

Jake's face set into a look I hadn't seen since the war. A flutter of excitement built up in my chest.

"What are the risks involved in this?" Jake demanded, sitting up just a little straighter. O'Neill straightened too, his face setting into the face of leader. It was a little leary being between the two of these guys.

"Besides that this will be the first time the ship will be testing is Z-Space? Possibility of hostiles on the planet, possible unknown illness. The same general risks of going to any unexplored area."

Jake hummed, flipping through the report.

"What are the conditions then?" I asked him.

"Obviously, confidentiality. Until the President decides the public needs to know." He cleared his throat, taking a drink of his water. "Another thing. We have 400 planets currently confirmed to be Earth-like, but there are 1000's more waiting to be confirmed."

"Shit-" I whispered.

O'Neill nodded, "The closest planet is 13 light years away from us. By Z-Space, our scientists have estimated that it will take no more than a few of hours to reach it. Your team is given a week, on your discretion, to explore the planet. If it fits in all the criteria, then the ship will land and the rest of the crew will join you. If not, you pack up and move on to the next planet.

"This could take years. It could take a few simple weeks. It all depends on what you find."

I sighed, "Well, I'm all for it." I said, Jake and Tobias turned to me in surprise. "My parents though- I mean." I sighed. "Damn it, my dad works at NASA, I can't just leave-"

"I figure-" O'Neill said slowly. "You parents all had a hand in saving Earth correct? I believe it will be alright for you to tell them a little. Only enough, mind you, for them to not worry you are not around."

"I'm in." Tobias said. "I don't exactly have a family to worry about me. As long as you don't mind me being a bird most of the time."

O'Neill sent him a grin and shook his head.

We waited as Jake continued to look through the portfolio before he sighed, closing it. "I'm in." he said, "With one condition."

O'Neill nodded for him to continue. "As long as we can back out at any time. If we find that the mission is going out of line, I'm out."

O'Neill nodded, "I can guarantee that won't happen. But very well."

"I want it written in our contract." Jake said firmly O'Neill let out a chuckle.

"Yes, yes. Are there any other concerns?" He looked at each other, shaking our heads. "Very well." He stood up, and we followed. He placed a few bills on the table, picking up his briefcase. "You can hang on to those files until we get to Kepler's facility."

"Where is it?" I asked as he lead us out of the restaurant.

He held the door open for us, "Right out in the desert."


	3. Chapter 3

AN: A day late, sorry. I have exams next week so I'm blaming it on that xD

Chapter 3

It was really hard to believe that this building, which was the size of a bungalow, was where they were building a massive Space Ship.

"Are you sure we have the right address?" I asked Jake as he pulled in behind the General's car. A few men in army uniform were stationed around the large fence surrounding the building, a couple more guarding the doors inside.

"Must be." Jake said as he shut off the engine.

We got out of the car (Tobias having demorphed and remorphed on the way), following General O'Neill to the door. The men guarding saluted us as we headed inside.

I whistled, ment to be sarcastic. The whole place was empty.

"Nice set up." I said. O'Neill didn't reply, instead moved over to what looking like a security system panel, pressed a few buttons. Suddenly, the floor lurched and started heading down.

Down, down we went, until after a few minutes we came to a stop. The wall opened up in front of us, revealing a brightly lit hallway, people in lab coats and army uniforms moved here and there. Announcements echoed off of large speakers in the walls. And every once in a while you caught a few snatches of thought-speak.

"Alright so I stand corrected." I said.

"Come." O'Neill said, leading the way down the hall. "I sent word ahead for a meeting to be held for the Kepler team. With you three we officially have our full crew."

He lead us down the hall, people skirting around us, too busy with whatever they were doing to pay us much attention.

We passed quite a few doors, before O'Neill brought us to a set of double glass doors, NASA's symbol stained in the middle.

Inside was a large circular table made of a dark wood, except the middle, which was covered in a large, opaque glass.

"Please, take a seat. The rest of the team will be here soon enough." O'Neill said, moving to a chair facing the door.

We looked at each other, taking seats closer to the General. The door opened and three people came in, laughing between each other.

"Oh!" A woman with red hair exclaimed. "You must be the rest of our team? My name's Jessie." She said, holding out a hand to us. One by one we shook them, "This here is Dan." she pointed to a tall man with light brown hair, "And this is Kevin." The shorter blonde waved to us. "We're part of the navigations team for Kepler."

"What does that mean?" I asked as they took seats around the table.

"It means." Kevin said. "We designed the navigations system on Destiny. We are also going to be the ones to drive the beast."

"Destiny?" Tobias laughed, making Dan and Jessie laugh too.

"Yeah Destiny. We had a vote. It was either that or Enterprise." We all shared a laugh at that when the door opened again.

"Dad!?" I exclaimed, shooting to my feet.

"Hey Marco!" He greeted happily, grabbing me into a hug.

"What... What are you doing here?" I stuttered, completely thrown off.

"Dr. Reed is our Z-Space communications expert." Kevin explained as my dad took a seat beside me. "He's designed all the Z-space transmitters here on Earth and for Destiny."

I stared at him in surprise and Dad laughed at me, "I'll also be coming with you, on the ship I mean."

"What? What about mom?"

"She's fine with it. I always wanted to go out to space. Who is she to deny me that. Her words, not mine." He said quickly when Jessie scowled at him.

The door opened and two more people came in a curly haired woman named Jennifer and another guy who introduced himself as Jack claimed they designed the weapons for both the main ship, and it's vessels.

There were only three seats left, one beside General O'Neill, and the others sitting around the table.

When the last two came in (Harry and Al who said they helped build the Engines and Z-space engines).

"This seems like a really small crew." Jake commented, looking around.

"Oh no. We're just the heads of our specific departments." My dad piped up. "There will be more people, in all there's around 30 of us in total."

"Oh, well that sounds better." I mumbled.

Jessie laughed, "Destiny is designed to hold a small crew. Really, saying we're part of separate departments is false. Colonel Isthill demanded that everyone can jump from station to station if needed. I know just as much about the Z-space engines as I do my own specialty."

Tobias sat up suddenly, staring at her, "You said-"

"Where is he?" O'Neill suddenly demanded.

"You know him General." Jennifer piped up. "He's caught up in something. He'll be along soon enough."

My dad suddenly shifted beside me.

"What is it?" I asked him, and he looked uncomfortable.

"Have you been told who runs Kepler?" He asked, shooting a glance towards O'Neill, who shook his head once. Dad suddenly looked very nervous.

"Oh, he's not going to like this."

"The Colonel will just have to deal with it if he wants this mission to go forward." O'Neill said firmly.

"Alright. What's going on?" I demanded.

"Marco-" Tobias breathed, his eyes wide, staring at O'Neill. "I think they're talking about-"

"I am sorry!" A voice called out as I heard the door open. My heart stopped and I froze as I watched Jake's head snapped over, looking towards the door. I watched his eyes widen, and his face drain of color.

"It's fine Colonel. Let's get started." O'Neill said, sitting back in his chair. Slowly I turned and I swear, I felt myself die.

He was still shorter than Jake, but defiantly a few inches taller than me. His black hair was longer now, just down to his chin, which he kept hanging around his face. His bright blue eyes shinned behind a set of thin wired glasses, and widened in shock as he caught sight of the three of us.

Our eyes met, and a heart breaking hatred flashed.

"Ax-" Tobias whispered, getting to his feet shakily.

Ax ignored him, turning to General O'Neill. "What is this?" He demanded harshly. O'Neill frowned at him.

"Your team Aximili." he said firmly. "Ordered to be recruited by the President himself. They are the best for this job and you know it."

Ax looked furiously at the General before his face relaxed, "You are right. Of course." he sighed dejectedly. Ignoring us as he moved to his seat beside O'Neill, not sitting down, but setting up the papers he brought in with him.

"You knew this!" I hissed to my dad who shuffled in his seat.

"Ax- he's the one who offered me this job in NASA." he finally admitted, looking a little ashamed of himself. I didn't answer, couldn't answer. My heart pounded in my chest, my hands were shaking and I had to clasp them in my lap to stop the other's from seeing.

Ax looked up from his papers, pressing a spot on the desk, and lights wounds their way over the table in front of him, creating a key board. Type in a few numbers, the opaque glass in the center of the table glowed, sending a projection, floating in the air.

"This is Gliese 581 c. Nicknamed by Jessie here as Terra." Ax started, flashing a smile towards Jesse. "Terra, is one out of three confirmed Earth-like planets circling a single red dwarf star, much like our own."

The projection rotated, it's two moon circling around it.

"The moons are dead, like ours. Possibly by astroids, or even the atmospheres simply became too unstable. Anyways, the planet is has an estimated mass of 5.6 time that of Earth."

"A super-Earth!" Jennifer said excitedly, a scattered of mumbles running through the gathered group.

"Yes." Ax nodded, to her. "Continuing, it has a thirteen day rotation around its sun, but as far as we can see from Earth, Terra has a very similar weather cycle to that of Earth's, with the exception of its winters, which seem to last almost ten rotations, compared to its summers which last only two."

"Damn, so it's almost an ice planet." Dan muttered.

"No necessarily." Ax said, "Much like Earth, it seem that below the equator it tends to stay warmer than the northern parts of the world. Even if the weather is colder, there is hardly any snow that settles."

He flipped a page in his notes before continuing, "Terra's land mass takes up about 80% of the planets itself, with no actual oceans, but rather millions of lakes scattered over the surface."  
"And the weather is the same?" My dad asked in surprise.

"Surprisingly yes." Ax confirmed, "Enough water seems to evaporated to cause large enough storms to keep vegetation sustained. We also do not know what's under the surface, there could be reservoirs of water as large as the Atlantic for all we know. But we wont find that out until we land."

"Speaking of that." Harry piped up. "Test run on Destiny's engine's was, generally, successful. We simulated a situation leading up to turning on the Z-Space engines, well there was a little problem."

"Such as?" Ax asked, frowning.

"When the main engine's are put into full burn, the right one seems to hesitate a few seconds behind the left. We're working on a solution right now." Ax nodded by Tobias raised his hand.

"Why is that a problem?" he asked and Jessie smiled.

"A few seconds could be enough to knock us off course. Getting into Z-space is a very precises science. We not only need to calculate how long we need to be in Z-space, but also keeping the ship on course for our destination."

Tobias looked confused still.

"Alright, you explain it." She looked at Ax, who sighed exasperatingly at her.

He turned to Tobias for the first time since entering the room, "Getting into Z-Space is relatively simple enough. Get going fast enough we, essentially, create a tunnel going from normal space, into Z-Space. A wormhole." He clarified. "Getting out of Z-space is not so easy. After all, simply slowing down does nothing, and the ships cannot handle going any fast than they already are, and theoretically, will not bring is back to normal space.

"Therefore, in order for us to return to normal space, we need to find a rift between Space and Z-Space. Essentially, a weakness that will allow us to create another wormhole, pulling us back. For example, the rift in our Solar system is out by Saturn which is where all Andalite ships exit Z-Space from."

"So, how do we know where these rifts are?" Jake asked, frowning.

"That's our job." Jesse said. "The data we recieved from the Andalites show molecular differences between real Space and Z-space. Think of a rift like a crack in a cup, with the liquid being real space, and the area outside Z-space. Through that crack, you are going to have leaks. The computer on Destiny will pick up on those molecular changes and guide us out. Fairly simple actually."

"Sure. Simple." Jake said, nodding seriously. The others around the table laughed (excluding Ax).

"Harry, Alan, I am hoping you have the engine problem fixed by the next scheduled run?" Ax said, and the two of them nodded, making something in their notes.

"Of course, sir."

Ax nodded turning to General O'Neill. "Anything else, sir?"

"No, I think you've covered it Colonel." he nodded. "Is take off still a go in six months?"

"It could be earlier." My dad said suddenly. "Most of the bugs have been filtered out, aside from the engine quirk-"

"Very good." O'Neill said, nodding to Ax. "I expect a full report on my desk by tonight Colonel."

Ax nodded, gathering up his papers as the projection shut off, the keyboard on his desk disappearing back into a smooth wooden surface. He didn't wait for a dismissal before rushing out of the room.

The General sighed, standing up. "Very well, back to work then. Dismissed."

Most of the other's got up, gathering their things and filtering out. Leaving dad, Jake, Tobias, the General and I.

I placed my head in my hands, letting out a shaky breath.

"This isn't going to work." I groaned, I felt my dad's arm wrap around my shoulder.

"What do you mean Captain Reed?" O'Neill asked.

I dropped my hands looking towards him, "You didn't tell Ax you choose us, and I don't know about you, but to me he didn't look to happy to see us."

"How long has Ax been working for NASA?" Tobias demanded, his eyes boring into O'Neill's, who look confused.

"Here's been working here for about four years, spending a year receiving his PhD- Are you telling me you had no idea he was here on Earth?"

"Is he a _nothlit_?" I demanded suddenly, remembering the glasses.

"Yes Marco." My dad said softly. "It's Ax's business really, but.- Yes. He has been a _nothlit_ for four years now."

"Oh fuck-" I groaned again, slamming my head down onto the desk.

"Why? Why is he here?" Jake asked, looking around. "I thought he left with the Andalite's?"

My dad and the General exchanged looks. "I'm afraid, that will be something you need to ask Colonel Isthill."

"Isthill?" I mumbled, my voice vibrating off the wood.

"Ax's championship reads that his first name is Aximili, middle Esgarrouth, and his last name, or surname, his it easier on all of us." Dad explained as he gently rubbed my back.

"Gentlemen, you are the perfect candidates for this mission, and General Isthill has agreed or he would not have continued on with the briefing." O'Neill said firmly as he stood up. "Whatever issues there are between the four of you, you need to sort it out between yourselves." He saluted us, turning and leaving the room.

"Come on boys." My dad sighed. "I'll show you to your quarters."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It had already been almost a week since we'd been here, and I had yet to actually seen Destiny yet. Mostly we hung around with Jesse who was more than happy to show her hero's around.

Massive amounts of supplies were being shipped in everyday, and I figured Destiny would be able to sustain its crew for a couple of years.

The General put us through basic weapons training, using not only guns, but also our own human made laser weapons. Just like the Shredder's or Dracon's.

On top of it all, I also hadn't seen Ax since the briefing. Every once in awhile his voice would echo through one of the speakers, setting me on edge every time.

I yawned as I headed towards my door, opening it while my eyes were closed, smashing directly into someone who was walking by, knocking us both to the ground.

"Ah man." I groaned, holding my head. "Dude I'm sorry."

"It is fine Marco." the voice said stiffly. I looked up in surprise to see Ax as he placed his glasses back over his eyes, picking up the papers that fell from his hands.

"H-here. Let me help." I stuttered, grabbing a few that had fallen around me. He looked at me, taking the papers from my hands as I held them out to him.

"Thank you." he said, getting to his feet, holding them to his chest.

"Yeah." I replied, standing up too, wiping my hands on my pants. We stood there in an awkward silence before Ax sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Has anyone shown you the ship yet?" He asked and I shook my head no. He let out a small smile. "Its quiet impressive."

"If you worked on it, I'm sure it is." I muttered, and he blinked..

"Follow me then." he said softly, sending me a look I couldn't pin-point. He headed off down the hall. A few times we stopped when on of the Scientists asked him something (most of which went right over my head). Until finally we came to the end of the corridor, two large steel door with heavy security stood there.

Ax placed his hand on a panel to the side of the door, which opened with a hiss of hydraulics.

"Welcome to Destiny." Ax said, gesturing me in front of him.

The sounds of men and woman talking, hammers banging against metal, sparks lighting up the air from welders.

I looked like we were on the a second story, a railing just in front of the door, a metal walkway passing in front, extending around the room with two sets of stairs on either side.

I stepped forwards, Ax behind me as the door closed. Leaning against the railing I realized we had to be over 50 feet from the ground. And sitting there-

"We build the ships in here. Or we will once Destiny takes off." Ax explained, folding his arms on the railing, leaning over to look down, his black hair covering his face. "The floor will rise when we are ready, the ceiling is false."

I leaned over and looked up. "How far up is that?"

"Over a couple hundred feet." He replied. "Top secret and all that."

I looked back down. Destiny was- beautiful. The front was pointed, the ship expanding larger towards the back. It rested off the ground to stop the two sets of engines from touching the ground. The metal they used for the hull was tinted a teal-blue, with silver accents here and there.

Over where the engines rested rose up almost touching the platform I was standing on, two large windows, almost like eyes rested on either side.

Let's put it this way, it looked nothing like an Andalite ship, even better, it looked nothing like a Yeerk ship.

"She's beautiful." I whispered. Ax chuckled beside me.

"Yes she is something." He agreed. "The point of the ship is where the bridge sets, where most of the team you met a few days ago will be spending their days. The thicker part of the ship is used for cargo, living quarters, an infirmary. Everything we need to live out in space. There are also a set of ten fighters set inside from the bridged to the quarters, on the lowest level of course. Just in case." He said quickly, when I looked at him in surprise.

"Is every ship going to be like her?" I asked and he shook his head, sighing.

"I'm afraid the Yeerk invasion has the President a little paranoid. There is another Kelper facility that is designing military ships. They wont be sent to orbit unless there is a threat, or the Andalite's come calling for their allies." He shrugged. "That's not my problem. I have nothing to do with any military any more."

"Why?" I asked him. He ignored me, heading down the walkway towards a set of stairs. I followed him.

Destiny really was huge. I felt like an ant standing next to a bus.

"Hey Ax? What about other things? Like blackholes... Nova's?"

He laughed lightly. "Do not worry. Both are pretty hard to miss. Besides the one at the center of our galaxy, the closest hole is 1,600 light years away. We will not be going anywhere near it." he sent me a grin over his shoulder. "At least, that is the closest one we have found."

"Great, that's encouraging."

Ax seemed to laugh in delight as we reached the bottom and he strolled across the floor to a table where he placed all of his papers down, spreading them out and leaning over them. I watched him as he absently brushed his hair behind his ear and I noticed for the first time a thick, clean, scar that ran from his hairline below his ear to almost the middle of jaw under his cheek, it had been covered perfectly by his hair.

"Ax." I whispered softly, coming to stand in front of him. "Why are you here?"

Anger flashed over his face, and I'll admit for a second I was actually scared of him, before he turned away from me and striding off.

"Don't take it too hard.' A voice came form behind me and I turned to see Jessie standing there. "He- he's had it pretty rough the last few years alright?"

"What happened to him? That's all I want to know." I pleaded. I suddenly had the urge that I _needed_ to know, as if my life depended on it. "Please I'll take anything. Please."

She looked at me curiously before her eyes widened and then narrowed. "I'm going to ask you a question Captain Marco Reed, and I feel you don't answer me truthfully I'll see to it myself that you are taken off this mission."

I nodded furiously, not trusting myself to speak.

"Did you help write that article? The one that told the whole world about your relationship with him?"

"What? No!" I exclaimed. "Is that what he thinks? I need to go tell him-"

"Second question!" She yelled over top of me, catching the attention of a few nearby workers. "Do you love him Marco?"

I blinked at her. But her eyes were set, and I knew I couldn't walk away without answering. "Yes. No. I don't know!" I snapped finally. "It's been five years since I've seen him, even heard form him. So how can I answer that?"

She tilted her head, studying me for a moment. Suddenly she smiled.

"Aximili goes up to the surface when he's like this. He'll sit out watching the stars for hours. Generally he shouldn't be too far away-"

"'Kay thanks!" I yelled to her as I rushed up the stairs and out of the hanger. It felt like hours waiting for the elevator to come to my level, and even more as I rode it back up to the surface.

It was well passed sunset by now, though time felt a bit distorted being underground for so long.

"Hey you. Soldier." I grabbed one of the guards, who snapped into a salute as soon as he saw my face. "Yeah, yeah. At ease or whatever it is. Have you seen Ax? I mean Colonel Isthill?"

"Yes, sir!" The soldier shouted, making my ears ring. "He went that way, sir!"

"Great thanks. A lot less yelling next time alright?" I said, wiggling my finger, heading into the direction he pointed.

I walked out, the darkness getting thicker as I moved farther from the light of the facility. The glow from a cigarette caught my attention and I headed towards it.

"If that is you Marco. Go away." Ax's voice rang out, sounding defeated.

"I will." I said, coming to a stop behind his head. He was laying down, his head propped on one arm, his smoke in the other. "Has anyone eve tell you that's a really bad habit?"

He snorted dismissing the comment. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to get something clear between us. I'm not going to assume anything on what happened to you, or why you are here on Earth. But I want you to know, if this is what has you mad at me-"

"Get on with it!" Ax snapped, making me jump.

"Sorry. I had nothing to do with that article Ax."

I watched his muscles tense. He flicked away the smoke and with surprising agility, was up and on his feet.

"What did you say?" He breathed.

"I said, I had nothing to do with that article."  
He stared at me. Awkwardly I stared back, becoming alarmed at the Earth shattering look on his face.

"I- what?" he breathed, his hands shaking.

"Ax! Ax are you alright?" I took a step towards him, but he jumped back.

"No! Do- do not. Leave me alone!" he stumbled away from me.

"Okay, just relax. I'm not going to- to hurt you Ax." Something clenched in my stomach but I refused to think about it.

He turned his back to me, his face in his hands and he breathed deeply. A moment later he straightened up, turning back to me.

"Thank you for telling me." he said softly, avoiding my eyes. "I apologize for my behaviour when you first arrived."

"Don't sweat it."

"We should go back inside before General O'Neill comes for us." Ax sighed, still avoiding me as he moved passed, heading towards the building. It wasn't until we were back in the elevator I broke the silence, I could't take it anymore.

"So, you work for NASA." I said slowly. "Don't you need some sort of PhD?"

Ax smiled lightly. "I have a few actually. The Military was going to pay for my University studies, paying them back once I entered my place here."

"But- it doesn't match up." I said slowly. "It take a few years to get the license."

Ax laughed again. "Which is true, and I was fully prepared for that. I applied to the best Universities in the US, each one giving me an acceptance once they realized who I was. Harvard University did something a little more clever. Along with the acceptance letter, they sent me the final exams for each subject I was planning on taking."

"Oh, let me guess. You passed all of them?" I grinned.

"With flying colors." he said nodding. "My only year in school was spent writing my theses, which set quite a few records I am told and well-" The elevator door opened. "Here I am." he finished off, shrugging. Walking down the hall.

We fell into silence as we came to my quarters. "Well Ax. I'll see you tomorrow."

He nodded, and it seemed like he was going to say something else but turned and walked away. I watched him go before slipping into my room.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Okay, kind of short, but to make up for it, I'll post chapter 6 tomorrow.

Chapter 5

"Does anyone feel like you don't fit in?" Tobias mumbled as the three of us sat together in the large sitting room, the TV turned on to whatever. We weren't really paying attention.

"Between the Scientists and the army men?" I sighed. "Yeah, a little."

"Don't feel bad guys!" A chipper voice piped up and Jessie sailed over, collapsing onto Jake's lap. "We're just being all geeky. Isthill can be such a slave driver."

"I heard that!" Ax's voice rang out from behind us.

"Anyways, we realized we're leaving you out. So, we've come to invite you to our weekly party."

"What?" Tobias laughed. "Are we doing shots from test tubes."

Jesse grinned. "A using beakers as beer mugs. All in the name of Science!" she jumped to her feet, grabbing one Jake and Tobias' hands in her own, pulling him up off the couch we were sitting on.

"You as well Marco, or she will come back for you." Ax laughed as Jessie dragged the other two out of the room with surprising strength.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world. A party at NASA." I said getting up heading towards him. He grinned stepping into pace with me as we followed them out of the hall.

"The people's taxes at work." Ax laughed.

"Besides the massive space ship of course." And he nodded in mock seriousness.

We came into a set of quarters. All the other team members, including my dad, were sitting around in a few very comfy looking chairs. Everyone cheered, raising their glasses as we came in and Ax shook his head in amusement.

"I think you will fit in well with this group Marco." He said, leading me to the nearby table, pouring us both a glass of wine.

I took a sip, hesitant since I've never been one to drink, but it was nice, sweet even. The room was huge, with computers everywhere. I'm not kidding. There were enough PC's and laptops for everyone in the room to have at least one.

The chairs were, basically, all pointed towards the far wall, which looked like it was one huge TV screen. Behind me, the warmth from the electric fireplace made my shadow dance in its light.

"How did you hook up with them all?" I asked him. Ax smirked. "I hired them."

"Seriously? NASA has given you that much control?"

"Well, I am the team leader. Originally, they wanted to me use the team they had picked out. But I ended up refusing to work with them, and NASA's board aloud me to pick my own."

"What was wrong with the other team?"

Ax winced. "Well- Now please, do not get the wrong impression. But, the other team was- too set in their ways?"

"Are you telling me they were too old!" I laughed making Ax wince again.

"No. I am saying that I needed a team- Oh fine, yes." He resigned as I continued to laugh. "NASA is full of great scientists. But they are all trying to use their older theories, instead of the new ones we had gained from the Andalites." he pointed up towards the group who all peeled into laughter. It was nice seeing Jake smile this much.

"This is a group of the team leaders. They are also some of the youngest scientists NASA has. Those like Jessie, Dan and Jennifer, they are right out of University and were actually taught everything they needed know that would be applied for Destiny.

"Then there's me." He said with a sigh. "And General O'Neill, who will be Commander of Destiny, and of the group of soldiers that will be coming with us."

"Yeah he doesn't strike me as a space loving guy."

"He's not." Ax agreed, taking a sip of his drink. "Most of this stuff goes way over his head. But he is a good man and more than qualified to lead this mission."

"I thought you were the leader."

"Of the Kepler group." Ax pointed out. "We are the team of scientists, but we cannot go into unknown territory without protection."

"True. I feel like these should be more departments." I frowned.

"There should be. For example, there should be a biologist coming with us. Or a linguist since I am the only one here with a translator chip." he sighed. "Turns out, not too many people want to be on the first mission outside of our galaxy."

"Ah, I see why Jake, Tobias and I were asked now." I hummed.

"Not only that." He whispered. "I cannot morph Marco. I am still not 100% used to my human body, especially when it comes to fighting. I have tried training with three other groups." He took a quick sip of his wine. "Who else could I trust?"

I breathed, finishing off my drink and grabbing the bottle and pouring another one, filling Ax's glass when he held it out to me.

"So, who's rooms are these? Mine look like a prison cell compared to this."

"Mine." Ax said simply, grinning into his drink.

"Seriously?" I said in shock, looking around the room. I finally noticed that is seemed a lot more open than mine. Were my kitchen and dining room were in separate rooms on their own, Ax's kitchen was off to the corner, a set of islands acting as a barrier between it and the living room. There were only two other doors. Which I assumed were the bathroom and his bedroom.

"Seriously." He laughed. "I have been living here for four years. And NASA pays good money for the job, room and board all included."

"No kidding." I whistled. "I figured living underground would bother you."

"For the first year I had a lot of panic attacks." he admitted. "The claustrophobia became more tamable over time, but sometime it can sneak up on me, especially if I'm under stress."

"Like the other day?" I asked him and he nodded shortly.

The other's were setting up a bunch of the computers, setting up the LAN lines, telling Tobias all about World of Warcraft, demanding he set up an account.

I went to take a sip of my wine, noticing it was empty, and refilled the glass, taking a large gulp.

"Marco?" Ax asked softly, taking the bottle from me. "How- how is Cassie?"

"She's fine. She's having a baby actually."

"Really? That- that is fantastic." he said.

"She's wondered about you. She's been worried since she hasn't heard from you."

Ax snorted into his glass, tilting it back and downing it. "I find that hard to believe." he said bitterly.

"Why?"

He sighed, refilling his glass. "When I first came back on Earth, Tobias was the first one I tried to find. I wasn't expecting to find him. Next was Cassie." He took a drink. "Her husband told me she wanted nothing to do with me, or any of the Animorphs, and that if I called again he'd have me arrested."

"What?" I exclaimed in shock, but Ax was lost in his own world. "It- took me a while to find Jake's number, and was met with pretty much the same thing, despite how much I pleaded that I needed help. I wasn't long after that I ended up- getting arrested. Which alerted the Military on my location and General O'Neill brought me here."

My heart clenched. "You should have called me." I mumbled, not really meaning to say it out loud.

"What?" Ax asked looking blearily over at me.

"I said you should have called me." I said, louder this time. "You know, this wine is great!" I filled my glass again.

"And why should I have done that?" Ax asked me, taking the bottle.

"Because I would have let you stay with me." I said tilting my glass towards him. He blinked at me before a bright smile lit up his face.

"Thank you Marco." he said, tapping his glass to mine and we took a drink.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: As I promised, since Chapter 5 and 6 are pretty short. I'm going to try and post one or two more chapters by the weekend (hopefully), as of Friday, I'll be going on a two week vacation before my next semester in May, and hopefully during that time I'll get over the stupid writer's block I have. I know everything that's going to happen after the chapter I'm stuck on, but I can't get passed it; Dx

Chapter 6

We were all gathered in the conference room, the projection of Terra rotating in front of us.

"Take off has been moved up General." Ax said, the moment everyone settled. Cheer's rang up around us making Ax smile at his team.

"You are sure Colonel?" O'Neill asked. "If I take this to the president it will be final."

"Yes, sir. Destiny will be ready in one month. All that is left is the final supplies."

"Housekeeping." Jessie clarified.

"Very good!" O'Neill clapped his hands. "Then everyone is free to go, say your goodbyes. Remember your cover stories. Be back here a week before take off."

"Well Marco." My dad said, slapping me on the back. "We should go see your mother. She's going to have kittens over this."

"Kittens, dad? Really?" I groaned, but I grinned. This was going to be so cool, doing this with my dad.

I looked over to see Ax who was chatting away with O'Neill. "Hey, give me a second." I said, heading over to him. "Ax-man?" He turned, nodding at me, finishing his conversation with O'Neill before turning back.

"Yes Marco?"

"Well, I figure you should come with me." I said.

"Why?"

"You can see Cassie." I pointed out. He bit his lip before he nodded hesitantly.

I slapped his back, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "Good, because I'd hate to see what she'd do to me if I didn't bring you."

We headed out with my dad, Jake going his own way. Tobias elected to stay back at the Kepler facility.

We talked about the mission, dad and Ax working through possible scenarios we could encounter, adding my own opinion in.

We pulled in front of my parents house first. Nervously Ax got out of the car. "I'm not sure this is a good idea." he muttered, coming to stand beside me.

"We're only going to be here for as long as it takes my driver to get here."

Ax looked at me in amusement, "What?" I exclaimed. "I've been forbidden to drive alright? My mom cut up my drivers license." Ax laughed as we walked up the pathway to the door.

"You are _never_ piloting Destiny."

"But Ax!" I whined as dad opened the door, ushering us in.

"Eva? I'm home!"

My mom came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.

"Marco!" She exclaimed, coming over and wrapping me in a hug.

"Hi mom." I said, hugging her back. She pulled away, looking behind me. I watched curiosity turn to recognition. "Oh, its you is it." she said and icy tone to her voice.

"Mom!" I snapped as Ax stayed silent. But she continued to look at Ax, taking in his long hair and glasses.

"So, have you come to realize the faults of your people?"

"The Andalite's are _not_ my people." Ax said coldly, and for some reason that cheered my mother up.

"Well then, welcome Aximili. I just made some coffee."

((()))

It was a couple of days before we made it to Cassie's, turns out, she went into labor. When she was home and settled Ax and I went.

Ronnie met us at the door, looking curiously at Ax, before letting us in. He led us to the nursery, before heading downstairs for some drinks.

"Hey Cassie?" I said softly, knocking on the door gently.

"Marco!" she exclaimed quietly, standing up from the rocking chair, a bundle of blankets in her arms. "Come look." She said proudly, and I stepped forwards. She moved aside the blanket showing the squished face of her baby girl.

"She's beautiful." I whispered, which wasn't a lie. She beamed happily, like any mother would.

"Her name is Anita Rachel Chambers." she said and I smiled gently.

"Well hello Anita." I said, brushing a finger on the baby's cheek. "I'm your Uncle Marco. I have a surprise for you actually." I said to Cassie, looking up at her.

"Oh?" She said, surprised. I nodded towards the door, where Ax hovered nervously. It took her a moment before her eyes widened, then teared up. She placed Anita into my arms before diving at Ax, her arms clinging around his neck, sobbing into his chest.

"You stupid- Where have you been? You said you would come back! That you would call! Where were you?"

A stricken look came over Ax, as he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. He whispered something, too softly for me to hear. She moved to look at him in shock, more tears streaming from her eyes.

"We'll need to talk some other time then." she said, and he nodded.

"Come here." She said, taking his hand and pulling him towards me. "I bet you have not seen a human baby have you?"

"I- well, no." he stuttered, looking nervous again.

Cassie took Anita from me. "Hold up your arms." She said to Ax.

"Cassie, I- no it is alright."

"Ax!" She said firmly, and I snickered behind my hand. "Lift up. Your arms."

"Yes ma'am." he muttered, doing as she ask. She placed Anita in them, shifting Ax so he would support her properly and took a step back. Ax stared down in wonder at the baby in his arms, his eyes drinking in every detail.

"And that, Anita, is your Uncle Ax." I said to the baby, making Cassie smile again. "You know what. I'm going to help Ronnie with the drinks." Cassie gave me a grateful smile as I shut the door to the nursery.

Ronnie had his back to me as I entered the kitchen, and with strength I didn't know I had, I grabbed him and threw him up against this wall.

"What the hell?" He shouted.

"Where do you get off claiming to know what Cassie wants?" I spat at him.

"Excuse me? I'm her husband!"

"That does not give you the right to tell Ax she, of all people, wanted nothing to do with him!" I spat out, tightening my grip.

"The Andalite?" he said finally. "Is that who is with you?"

"Yes, you moron." Suddenly he looked very nervous, and I had a feeling I knew why.

"Listen here. I wont mention this to Cassie, you lucky bastard. But," I shook him. "But, if I find out, Ronnie, that you have been telling stories to the press. We're going to have a serious problem." And for the first time in years, I focused on the gorilla DNA, letting myself change just enough for him to start quivering in fear. I reversed the morph and let him fall to his feet, stepping away from him.

"Lucky for you, I'm not going to destroy Cassie's happiness on a hunch." and I walked away, heading back upstairs.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was the week before launch. Well actually, it was about three days from launch. Jake, Tobias and I continued on with our training, practicing our morphing, the weapons. Turns out, Tobias had been learning a bit of the navigations systems, at least enough so he wouldn't be completely lost when looking at a panel.

As the week wore on, those who had been never been into space were getting more and more nervous about our trip, which Ax seemed to take a sick delight in. He was constantly telling horror stories to Jessie, Harry and Al who all seemed to be the most freaked out, actually succeeding in making Jessie almost have a nervous break down.

O'Neill stepped in after that, told Ax to smarten up. Which he did. He became a lot more subtle in his torture.

My dad was bouncing off the walls. To him, this was a dream come true, and there was no space in that bubbly excitement for nerves or fear.

The day before our launch, the entire Kepler program (soldiers included), gathered out side for a small party. Reps from the government were there, giving us official speeches to send us off with, which every one mocked once they left. Even O'Neill was less than impressed.

Suddenly, Jake, Tobias and I had become very popular among the crew, having questions thrown at us from people we had met, and other's we hadn't, about what space was like. In the end, we had to leave it at 'Just wait and see', as nothing seemed to calm them.

The party wore on late into the night, those who had cars, turning their headlights on, as a stereo was brought out for music. Overhead, the stars shined brightly in their large clusters, and it was so surreal to know that by this time tomorrow, I'd be up there among them.

Lots of wine later, I stumbled away from the group, finding Ax standing off on his own, a lit cigarette in his fingers.

"I thought I told you that was bad!" I said trying to sound stern, but the hic-cup I let out ruined it.

In responds Ax took another drag, blowing the smoke towards me with a smirk on his face.

"Are you drunk too?" I asked, leaning on his shoulder as I raised my glass up. He giggled. "Yup, you so are!"

"Maybe a little." he said finally, tiling his head back.

"I thought you would be sick of the stars, yeah know?" Did I even know?

"How can you become sick of something that is always changing?" Ax said rhetorically. "Tomorrow, we could look in a telescope and find a new black-hole. Watch a star go nova." he smiled in a goofy way as he stared up. "The secrets to... Everything, are out there." he looked at me, the fire in his eyes ignited butterflies in my stomach. "All we need to do, is find them."

"Whatever." I said and Ax chuckled. I tossed my empty glass aside, not really caring where it landed as the music changed into a slower tempo. We were too far away to hear the lyrics, but I watched the dark figures all gather into two's.

"Ax?" I asked as he flicked away his smoke. "Would you dance with me?" holding out my hand. He looked at me in surprise before grinning again, placing his hand in mine.

I pulled him close, wrapping my arms around his waist and he brought his up to my neck. Slowly we danced in a circle, avoiding each others eyes until finally, Ax turned his head, his blue eyes connecting with my brown. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but he leaned his head, resting it on my shoulder instead. I shifted my arms so I was hugging him to me, pressing my face into his neck.

"I truly missed you Marco." he breathed, and I tightened my grip.

"I missed you, Ax."

((()))

"Destiny is go!" And with a jolt that shook the whole room, the floor of the hanger began to rise, bringing Destiny to the surface.

The crew of thirty, plus the twenty some odd military men all stood around me, some of their faces showing fear, apprehension. A few looked like they were going to puke.

Destiny rose until she was eyes level with me, and continued until I was looking at the bottom of her lift.

"It will take about thirty minutes for her to reach the top." Ax said from beside me, and he turned to us.

Jake kept staring up, shaking himself out his thoughts turning to Ax, Tobias was resting on his shoulder. "I suppose we should head up then."

The walk through the corridors was quiet, it felt like a funeral march. The salutes of those who were staying behind weren't helping.

Destiny was beginning to break the surface of the ground once we were all gathered. Jessie and Jennifer were holding hands, bags full of personal items slung on their backs.

With a grinding sound, and hissing of hydraulics, she came to a halt. One of the soldier closest to her, stepped forwards, placing a hand on her hull and a large door opened up. All team leaders stayed back as first the soldiers pilled onto the ship, lead by General O'Neill.

"Well, this is it." Kevin whispered behind me.

"Don't worry dude. Take off will be a breeze." I said. "Now, going into Z-space. That's another thing."

Jake nudged me in ribs as Kevin's face paled.

The crowed around us was hushed as the rest of the crew followed the soldiers onto the ship, until finally, it was only Ax's crew that was left.

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes flicking back and forth between me, Jake and Tobias.

((Let's do it.)) Tobias said suddenly, and we grinned, Ax stepping forwards and leading us up the ramp.

Harry and Al said their goodbyes for now, heading towards the back of ship to the engine rooms, while Ax lead us all left towards the bridge.

The bridge was, well what I expected it to be. The walls lined with computer consols, which slowly started filling up with respective people. General O'Neill was already there, standing in front of what I assumed was the Commander's chair.

The best part was that the whole room was open. What I mean is that the walls were not solid, but rather glass, giving a 180 degree view.

Ax stepped up to a small raised platform that was behind the Commander's seat, and O'Neill nodded to him, before sitting down. Ax motions Jake (who still had Tobias on his shoulder) and I forwards to stand beside him.

A clang of a large metal door slammed shut as Ax put on a headset.

"Engines, go." he said. After a moment, the ship began to shake as the engines whirled to life.

"Engine's ready!" A shout answered Ax.

"Systems check."

Clicks of keys, spoken demands into microphones, and one by one, each section announced they're ready.

"General O'Neill." Ax said, flicking the mic down away from his mouth, his hands reaching forwards to clasp the railing in front of him. Jake and I quickly followed, making him smirk.

O'Neill nodded, turning to the crew, "Very well, Colonel Isthill. Destiny? Prepare for take off."

A computerized voice echoed through invisible speakers, "Take off will comment in T-Minus five minutes."

The ground seemed to be shaking harder, the tension was rising in the bridge, but everyone stayed focused.

"NASA has given us go." My dad called from his counsel, a few of his team members chatting away on their headsets.

"Course encrypted General!" Jessie shouted.

"Take off, T-Minus two minutes."

I turned to Jake, who looked at me. A serene calm settled over his face, and I realized I felt completely calm.  
"Piece of cake." I grinned to him, and he smiled back.

"The cake is a lie!"

"T-minus, one minute and counting."

"All systems ready, General." Ax said, "Take off in 10 seconds."

I counted down in my head as the computer counted with me. At 'zero', the ship gave a lurch and suddenly all I could see was blue sky.

"We have take off!" Jesse shouted. "Reaching orbit in two minutes!"

Unable to see the ground, I watched out the window as the bright blue sky became darker and darker, until suddenly, there was nothing but blackness and stars as far as the eye could see.

"Destiny has reached orbit." Dan piped up. "Swinging around now Commander."

"We need to get on the other side of the Earth." Ax whispered quickly. "We're heading out to Saturn before we get into Z-Space."

I nodded as I watched out of the windows. To the left, Earth started coming into view. The bridge fell silent as they all stared in wonder at the planet.

"My God-" Someone whispered.

"She's beautiful." Jennifer whispered, staring through the window in front of her.

Commander O'Neill cleared his throat. "Come on people, we have a mission to do."

Everyone returned to their work, and with another lurch Earth suddenly disappeared and we were out in open space.

"We're right on course, sir." Dan said. "We'll be reaching Saturn's orbit in 48 hours."

Cheer's rang out around the bridge as everyone exchanged hugs and hand shakes. O'Neill stood up. "Alright, alright people. That was the easy part. In 48 hours, will be the true test." His face split into a grin. "All the same, congratulations Kepler!"

Ax took off his headset, setting it to rest on the railing.

"Lets stay here a minute." I said, staring up at the black sky.

"Sir!" My dad shouted suddenly. "There's a- a transmission coming through."

O'Neill paused at the door, frowning. He and Ax exchanged a look, before he headed back to his seat. "Do you know who it is?"

"An Andalite ship. Sir."

O'Neill sat down, picking up his headpiece once more, "Tap it through Reed."

In front of the Commander's seat, a hologram appeared; an Andalite appeared, and suddenly Ax ducked out of the way, hiding himself behind Jake.

"I am Prince-Captain Yongar of the Andalite fleet. Unknown vessel identify yourselves!"

"I am Commander O'Neill, of the human vessel Destiny. A pleasure to see you Prince-Captain."

The Andalite's eyes widened comically. "We were not aware humans had already created vessels."

"Only the one, Prince-Captain." O'Neill said. "We have a crisis on Earth that needs immediate attention. This is a exploration ship, not meant for combat."

The Andalite paused a moment, studying the Commander. "Very well." Yongar said finally. "Remember the conditions of the treaty Commander." and the hologram disappeared.

"I should not be here." Ax said shakily, Commander O'Neill turning to him. "I warned you of this! I should not have come!"

"Aximili Isthill! We have gone through this again, and you were _ordered_ to drop the subject!" O'Neill snapped, and Ax scowled. "It is too late for second guessing now!" O'Neill motioned towards the windows. Ax seemed to deflate before nodding, turning away from us. Jake sent me a look and I shook me head.

((Why are the Andalite's in our- well, air space, so to speak?)) Tobias asked, broadcasting it to everyone.

"Part of the treaty states that the Andalite's will help protect our solar system, until such a time Earth can defend it themselves." O'Neill said mechanically. "The fine print, that has not been made public, is that once Earth has created battle ships, we are supposed to be helping the Andalite's against the Yeerks."

"Now that they know we have at least one ship, they'll be watching Earth a little closer." Ax said bitterly.

"The president is aware of your concerns Colonel Isthill." O'Neill said, sighing like he has said this hundred times already. "And he was prepared for the risk when he gave a 'Go' for Kepler."

Ax gave a final nod, dropping the topic. Tobias morphed, heading to the navigations consoles, chatting with Jessie and Dan.

Jake wandered around, sticking his nose in here and there. When a lull of comfortable activity settled around the bridge, Ax moved over to O'Neill, and I shuffled a but around my dads station, straining my ears.  
"Jackson, you do realize who that was?" he whispered, with my back to them, I couldn't see the expression on his face.

"Yes, Aximili. I recognised the name." O'Neill responded just a quietly. "You are safe little one, and soon enough, we'll be out of their radar. Alright?"

"Alright." Ax mumbled, sounding like a child who was just told no cake before dinner.

I could piece together the puzzle. Ax was scared of the Andalite's finding him. Why? What had Ax done? He had only been gone for a year! Which was really nothing compared to Andalite time.

"Marco?" a voice made me jump and I turned to see Ax behind me. "Come, I'll show you to your quarters."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Mars was beautiful, Jupiter was definitely the monster I was expecting. But this-" Jessie trailed off as we gathered around the windows. Saturn was appearing out of the darkness, only half of it in the light of the sun.

"Look at those rings!" My dad breathed.

"And the moons." Jesse said. "Look, there's Titan!"

Ax was standing beside me on the platform, smiling smugly at his people around the bridge, like a parent who's child just recieved an important award.

"I always loved Saturn." Jennifer piped up, Kevin looking over her shoulder. "Do you know it takes 29 Earth years for Saturn to complete one rotation around the sun?"

"Yes Jen, we _all_ know that." Dan sighed impatiently, rolling his eyes at Jack. She huffed, but continued smiling out at the massive planet.

"I didn't." Jake muttered to me. "Me neither." I mumbled back, smiling innocently as Ax burst out laughing.

"Shame we can't stick around longer." My dad sighed wistfully, the other's mumbling their agreement.

"Come now people." O'Neill said. "We've seen these planets a hundred times-"

"But not like this, sir." Jessie said.

"True. But I had thought you would be more excited to find planets we have never seen before?"

That seemed to snap the crew out as they all moved back to their stations. Though every once in a while I watch a head turn to look out.

"Alright, sir." Dan piped up. "We're bringing her around. Setting course for Z-Space."

"Keep careful watch navigations." Ax warned, a grin slipping onto his face. "We don't want to be off course after all."

"No, sir." the crew echoed.

"Nervous?" I asked Ax quietly, and he looked at me puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this is the first time the ship will be going into Z-Space right?"

"Ah, well." Ax said sheepishly. "Perhaps I am a little apprehensive."

Jake moved behind me. "Jeez Tobias." He groaned, lifting the bird from his shoulder and placing him to rest on the railing.

((Sorry. Sorry. Little nervous.)) he laughed shakily, his talons gripping the railing tightly, pressing small dents into the metal.

"Do not worry Tobias." Ax said. "I am fully confidant in Destiny."

((Yeah sure. I just freaks me out a little. You know, the whole Z-Space thing.))  
"You sure you're part Andalite?" I muttered to him and he ruffled his feathers at me.

With a burst of speed, we flew past Saturn, slowly coming around the planet, keeping it on our right side.

"Course set, sir." Dan said, his voice a little thin.

"Here we go." Ax said under his breath, clearing his voice he raised his voice. "Set for Z-space travel."

"Setting engines to full burn, sir. Z-Space engine's powering up." Kevin chimed in.

Harry's voice came clear through the speakers. "Everything is a-okay down here."

Ax nodded to the General. "We have 'Go'."

"Going to full burn, now!" Jesse said, punching a key. With on final burst of speed that almost took Jake and I off our feet, we blasted forwards. The stars outside melding into long thin lines. Saturn disappearing in seconds.

"Entering Z-Space in estimated 10 seconds!" Jessie yelled, though she really didn't need to. She counted back from ten, as the air around the ship began to change, like different color fires roaring over the hull. At one, she punched another button, one last burst of speed and-

"We're in Z-Space. Congratulations team." Ax said, as the empty white space surrounded us.

"Twenty-four hours and we'll be in the Gliese solar system." Dan said, and he took off his head piece, staring up out of the window.

"Well, twenty-four hours of pure nothingness. Anyone bring cards?" a chuckle rose up at my joke, but the scientists were all too busy looking out of the windows. "They'll get bored of that soon enough." I said to Jake, who nodded. "Hey Tobias? You can chill now."

((Yeah. Yeah, 'kay. I'm going to morph now.)) and he hopped down to the floor. "I'm going to- explore." he said shakily, Jake slapped his back, helping him out of the bridge.

"Your part is coming up soon." Ax said looking to me. "And that is taking one of the vessel ships down to the planet."

"You're flying right?"

"As I said before. You are not piloting anything." he replied, heading out of the bridge.

"No, you only said Destiny." I pointed out, following him.

"Well I ment anything."

"Ah man! I remember when you used to be fun!"

"Marco, the only 'fun' there was, was at my expense or your idea. Like that girls pool party."

"Oh yeah! That was great." I sighed, Ax shaking his head at me. We entered the kitchen, a couple of soldiers slipping by me, lunches for them and a few friends it looked like, held in their arms.

Ax headed to one of the fridges. "Shall we have some wine? Or would you like something else?"

"Wine would be great." I said, sitting at the counter. Ax pulled out two glasses, pouring the wine out.

"I'm sure you're feeling pleased with yourself." I said, taking a sip.

"Not at myself per say." He said. "My team? Now that's another story. Come." He led the way out, down the corridor to his quarters. It was designed a lot like his one back at base, except that this one had a large window.

As we settled Ax began to fidget with his glass, staying silent as I pretended to look around.

"Marco, I want to tell you something- but I am not sure where to start."

"The beginning is always a good place." I suggested.

"The beginning is us. Our relationship to be more precise." I fell silent.

He sighed, getting up and moving to the window.

"The beginning then."

AN: How, how mean of me, leaving you like this for two weeks :P Ah well, exams almost done, and I get a small break! Please review! It's be a nice surprise for me when I get home.


	9. Chapter 9

AN: -throws glitter- Hey guys, I'm back ^^. Okay, so- a week late, but I honestly didn't get home until last night. Not that you want to hear about it, so here's Chapter 9!

Chapter 9

"I did go on one mission with the fleet." He began. "The Dome ship that took me away from Earth was on a quick mission to scout out a planet. It only took a couple of months and I was taken home." He took a sip of his wine.

"The moment I landed, I was met with the announcement that I was getting married. To Estrid to be more specific."

"Wait, Andalite's have arranged marriage?" I asked in surprise.

"Sort of. Parents can _suggest _a marriage arrangement, but the bride and groom can say no. Many do not do so though. I, on the other hand, did."

"Oh, bet you they weren't happy with that." I winced.

"No, Estrid's father and my own specifically. That created a rift between my parents and I, it also knocked me back on any missions since Estrid's father was the only Prince-Captain on duty, and he refused to have me on his ship.

"Then, word about that article reached the home world. Rumors at first, until the council started looking into it." He took a deep breath. "In their opinion they had enough evidence against me, and had me arrested.

"The trial was unfair, they had already made their minds up. The only thing that saved me from execution was one member of the council, who reminded everyone that I was a hero to Earth, and were sure that the humans would not be happy if I was killed. So, instead, they sentenced me to exile, forcing me to morph, and stay over the limit."

He stayed silent. "They sent me here, of course, 'Let Earth deal with the abomination' they said. Problem was, as I said earlier, the only ship in dock with a Captain-"

"Estrid's father." I finished, and he nodded.

"Obviously, he was not too happy to take on this mission, but his ship was going through Earth's solar system, so he got charged with 'transporting' me."

He fell silent again and I walked around him, gently tilting his face back, showing the scar. "And this?"

He pulled his face away, turning his back before pulling up his shirt.

"Fucking hell-" I breathed. "Those bastards."

His whole back was covered in scars, some thicker than others, some short, one went from his shoulder all the way down his back, stopping just before his waist.

"Apparently, some Andalite's don't treat prisoners all that well." he said bitterly, letting his shirt fall back down, turning back to me. "They have a specially designed vessel. You can only put in one designation, and once the craft has taken off, it cannot be changed. The one they put me in, once we reached Earth's orbit,was so old is nearly disintegrated coming through the atmosphere, and it dropped me off at your doorstep. By that I mean out in the forest, about twenty miles from Tobias' old meadow.

"I searched for him first, Tobias. Obviously, I couldn't find him. Somehow I made it to Cassie's old home and- well you know the rest. I never thought of asking help from her parents, instead I left there, wandering the streets, Jake's parents had moved out of their old house- It took me a few days to find enough money to call him.

"I got caught trying to steal food. Once arrested by the police, and I told them my name, they interrogated me for hours, since I am not able to morph, I could not prove who I was.

"That was when General O'Neill came. The military had a picture of my human morph on record. He took me to the Military hospital where they patched me up and then, they gave me their offer."

"Does O'Neill-"

"Know everything? Yes. Does he like Andalite's? No. Can he do anything about it? No."

"So, why did you hide from that Andalite? Are you not supposed to be out in space?"

"No, nothing like that. I am human now, the Andalite's would act like I had never existed. No, that Prince-Captain was- that was Estrid's father." he finished softly.

He went to move away, but I caught his hand, pulling him close to me. He stumbled, placing his hands against my chest, wrapping my arms around him, I held him tight, burying my face into his neck.

"I'm so sorry Ax." I whispered softly.

"What for?" He muttered, standing stiffly.

"For your suffering, and suffering in silence. We should have all been there for you as soon as you needed it."

He relaxed, placing his face into my shoulder, clinging to my arms. When his body started to shake, I still said nothing, only holding him closer.

"Lady's and Gentlemen, welcome back to space." Kevin announced as the white turned into black dotted with stars. The blinding light of the sun, lighting up the bridge. "Looking for visual of Terra."

"Remember, the third planet from the sun. The other two are for later." Ax reminded.

"Wait- other two?" Jake asked and Ax nodded.

"Yes. This solar system has three planets that are Earth-like. Terra is the biggest."

"There she is! Straight a head!" Jesse yelled out. The planet was only a pin-point at the moment, but growing bigger by the moment.

It was a monster. I mean, everything is space is huge, but this planet was a monster. And it did look like Earth. Well sort of. The same green land, and blue water. Though the amount of land completely outweighed the amount of water.

"Team One. You're up." General O'Neill said. Ax gestured to Jake, Tobias (who was human), and I. We followed him down the hall and through a door into a stairwell.

"Seriously? Stairs?" I groaned as we started down.

"We do not have the designs for air-lifts." As said laughing. We went down a few floors, hitting the bottom. In front of us were about ten fighter type crafts.

"Damn. You really have been busy." Tobias whistled, staring around as Ax lead up towards the far end of the ship, opening the door to one of the fighters and climbing in.

We followed after him. Four seat were set up, A pilot and co-pilot, and two more for passengers. The consol was kept to the front of the ship, the large windshield spread like a dome. There were plenty of cabinets, each with a small panel by the handle, a lock of sorts I assume.

Ax took a seat and I moved to the one beside him.

"Do not dare." Ax said, his eyes focused on the consoles in front of him, pressing buttons. "You are not aloud to drive. Jake? If you please."

"Sure Ax-man!" Jake said happily, pushing passed me as I took the passenger seat beside Tobias, who was snickering at me.

"Yeah, yeah. Driving's not my skill. But he never lets me fly!" I whined, strapping myself into the chair.

"From what I can remember you weren't very good at that either." Tobias said, still snickering.

"Ah, just like the good old days." I grumbled as the engine's powered on.

"Anything you need Ax?" Jake asked, staring at the consol.

"Watch the monitors, they are pretty self explanatory." he said distractedly.

"Right." Jake said, unconvinced, looking down where Ax had said.

"Are you ready Colonel?" My dad's voice crackled over the speaker.

"Systems ready."

"Gate opening."

Alarms started going off from outside the ship, as a massive '_crunch_' sounded out. A metal door began opening, revealing the black of space little by little.

"Oh this is so fucked." Tobias groaned.

"Man! This is like, the best roller coaster ever! Total beats 'Space Mountain'." I laughed, adrenalin pumping through my system.

"You're nuts." Tobias said.

"Come on bird-boy. You dive towards the Earth at a 100 miles per hour!"

"This is _so_ not the same!"

"Colonel, you're good for 'go'. Good luck Team One."

"You guys ready?" Ax said, looking around at us.

"Hell yeah!" Jake and I exclaimed together.

"Let's do it!" Tobias yelled, and Ax hit a button. The G-force was amazing. I was pressed back right into the seat, staring out the window as black surrounded us, the horizon of the planet spread out before us. Inside the ship, it was surprisingly very quiet.

Ax pointed the nose down, clicking a few buttons as we descended towards the planet, his eyes looking at the instruments in front of him, rather then out the window.  
"Everything looks good... I think." Jake said.

"Is there anything flashing red or giving you some type of warning?" Ax asked, not looking away

"No." Jake replied.

"Then everything is good."

Terra got bigger, and bigger until it filled the whole windshield.

"We have visual contact." My dad's voice rang out.

Ax didn't reply to him, his eyes sitting unblinkingly at the consoles. "Damn." he whispered.

"What? What's wrong?" Tobias asked a little panicky.

"Nothing. We're just coming in a little too shallow. The atmosphere is thicker than we originally thought." Ax said calmly.

"That's not a good thing!" Tobias said. "I know that much! Too shallow is not a good thing."

"Relax." Ax said, and suddenly, we were pointing almost straight down, Ax spirling the fighter until we turned, pointing the opposite way we had been. Closer and closer Terra got until flames started flashing across the windshield, a large 'boom ' reverberated through the small craft, shaking it horribly.

The shaking got worse until Ax hit the breaks. The suddenly deceleration slamming us forwards, our restraints straining.

The sky above us was a very dark blue, like our sky when the sun starts to set. Ax still had the fighter pointed down just far enough to see the horizon and the tops of the trees, green, like Earth's.

"Wow, I almost feel like we're going home." I said, staring out of the windshield, Tobias beside me mumbling about 'crazy aliens'.

"Jake, keep a look out for a place to land." Ax said and Jake nodded, looking out through the window beside him.

He flew overtop of the trees climbing up over a ridge (Or mountain I suppose), and a large clearing opened up before us.

"Found one!" We all exclaimed at the same time, falling into laughter as Ax moved to land. With a gentle 'thud' the craft landed on the ground, the engine's whining as Ax turned it off.

"Alright, there's a couple of rules. Very important rules." He made sure he had our attention. "May seem ridiculous to remind you, but better safe than sorry. Rule one: just because it looks like water, does not mean it is water. Rule two: Do not eat anything without having it tested first. Rule three: ask questions first, shoot as a last resort."

He unclasped himself from his seat, climbing passed Tobias and I to one of the cabinets, pressing his palm against the panel and the door opened. "Your prints are all encrypted into the systems, you can open any door just as everyone else on the crew." he pulled out three of the laser guns, handing us each one, before taking on himself.

"Do these have names?" I asked, slicking the power onto the lowest setting, unbuckling myself from my seat, standing up as well. "Seems kind of silly to call them laser guns."  
Ax looked thoughtful for a moment as he opened another cabinet where three packs were sitting.

"No, actually. Not that I know." He said finally, looking surprised.

"Then I'm calling them Saber's." I said firmly, attaching the saber to my belt.

"Saber? Like light saber?" Jake asked laughing.

"Why not? Human's will be the only ones to get the reference. If I had it my way, Destiny would be called The Death Star, just to freak out the Andalite's."

I watched Ax hold back a laugh as he turned his back to me, my pack still in his hands.

"Uh, Ax? I kinda need that." I said, holding out my hands, pretending to look impatient.

"Yes, here you go." He said, avoiding my eyes, handing me the pack, pulling another, much larger one for himself.

"Do I get one?" Tobias asked. "Oh wait, no. I'm a bird!" He laughed, still sounding a bit shaky. "What's in them?"

"Basic medical kits, rations, water, a thermal blanket. Enough supplies to last us a full week. Mine has a bunch of lab equipment for testing."

He moved to the door of the craft. "Wait." I said as he lifted his hand to the panel. "Are we sure it's safe? Like, can we breath?"

"This ship would have warned us already." Ax explained. "The air is breathable, though it is thicker. We'll have to take our time until we climatize to it."

"Right, lead the way." I said gesturing. Jake and Ax exchanged a look before Ax opened the door, a blast of warm air rushing over us.

Ax was right, the air was thick. Like a really hot, humid day in the middle of summer. A little uncomfortable, but not unbearable.

We stepped out into the light, looking around us.

"It's so much like Earth, it's unbelievable." Tobias said, looking around in awe.

"Tobias." Jake said suddenly. "Maybe you should demorph, fly around and take a look around."

Tobias narrowed his eyes at Jake, who looked calmly back. Ax stepped between them facing Tobias.

"Look, General O'Neill has put Jake in charge of the security aspects. I'm not a soldier anymore Tobias, I am a scientist-"

"Haven't you realized it?" I laughed, slinging an arm around Ax's shoulders. "We're his bodyguards."

Ax looked uncomfortable. "In a sense, yes, I suppose. Besides, Jake out ranks me, therefore, he'd be in charge by default."

Tobias looked angry for a minute before he nodded with a sigh. "Just like the good old days." he muttered as he began to demorph.

"Am I crazy or does anyone smell that? It's like rotten eggs." I said, looking around us, nothing but green grass spread out before us, the distant tree-line far ahead of us.

Alright, I'll be back. Tobias said as he flapped his wings, getting into the sky and floating up. Wow! These thermals are awesome! higher and higher he floated, banking before flying off.

"Let head towards the trees?" Jake suggested and Ax nodded. We started out, the grass rustling under our feet.

"Have you guys seen any kind of tracks?" I asked after a while, the other's shook their heads.

I can't see anything guys. No animals, no birds or any kind of rodents. Better yet, no predators. The trees are too thick for me too see through. Tobias flapped far above us, his thought-speak thin like he had to 'yell', but still audible. There is a small lake a few miles into the trees though.

"Better head there then." Ax said to Jake, who nodded. We walked along, stopping when we came to the tree-line.

"Look at this!" Ax said in awe, moving forwards. "This- it's almost like a maple tree." and he was right, the same shape of leaves, except they were a bright green, rather than a red or dark red, the bark wasn't brown, but a gray instead, smooth instead of rough.

"Is it really that odd? To find things that look similar on other planets?" I asked him, and he shook his head.

"Well, no. It is very likely we'll come across other creatures that will look like humans, maybe even Andalite's, like that Garatron, the Yeerk Inspector. It would not be any different for plants."

Jake pulled out his saber, flicking the safety off. "Let's go then." He said, leading the way into the forest, Ax following him with me behind.

We were silent, the only sound coming from the crunching of leaves beneath our feet.

"Don't you think it's a little too quiet?" I asked looking around us.

"Yeah." Jake said, "No birds, no insects. No noises of animals."

Ax hummed. "Remember, this is not Earth. The Andalite Home-world has very life on it besides the Andalite's themselves and a few small creatures and birds."

The smell was getting worse as we continued along, Tobias redirecting us towards the lake if we got off track.

The trees opened up to us, a small lake appeared. Tobias gave the all clear, and we stepped forwards, Ax taking off his pack as he knelt beside the shore, Jake and I standing behind him as a pulled a few things out.

"Damn." He said, looking at the vial he was holding, the liquid inside red.

"What?" I asked, looking over his shoulder.

"We can't drink this water." Ax sighed. "But this is only one lake." he finished as he placed the vial in his bag.

Shit! Guys watch-

I felt something press up against my neck, a glint of metal out of the corner of my eye as a spear pressed into Ax's neck beside my head.

"Tornalk!"


	10. Chapter 10

AN: So- my internet company decided to disconnect me. Of course, they say they didn't- but not being able to get online for two weeks says otherwise . Anyways, I didn't forget about you guys. Also, as a side note, I think this will be the last Animorphs fanfic I'll be writing, unless I get inspired later on. We'll see.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed/favored and have started to follow me ^^ I feel so loved xD

To chapter 10!

Chapter 10

"Tomalk!" a gruff voice said behind me.

"Uh- Ax? I think we found life." I said, wincing as the sharp spear head pressed farther into my neck.

"Tomalk! Arckdem yim!" the voice shouted again.

"We're friends." Jake's voice said calmly behind him. "Marco, Ax, raise your arms."

We did, my nose pressing against Ax's arm. "I surrender! Don't hurt me." I said, getting another jab in the neck.

"Dorin inal!"

"Stand up, slowly." Ax said, slowly rising to his feet.

"What?" I demanded.

"The translator chip has kicked in. Stand up."

I did, slowly, the spear head following me.

"Stremina!"

"Turn around." Ax translated, and I did. Slowly.

My mouth fell open in shock, and it took everything I had to not start laughing, even with the weapon pointed in my face.

"They're cats!" I let slip out, the one in front of me jabbing the spear closer to my face.

"Be quiet." Ax hissed, very cat-like himself.

The 'cat' in front of me had to be a little over six feet tall standing on two legs. Other than that, it looked exactly like a cat, pointed ears, whiskers, fur and tail. My guy was like a backwards tiger, black fur with large, thick orange stripes, markings over his face like a tabby cats.

There's just three of them. I think. I'm sorry, they were hiding in the bushes I couldn't see them. Tobias apologized and I watched him circle by overheard. I watched Jake give a small nod, his eyes fixed on the all white 'bi-cat' in front of him, the one holding Ax was gray with light brown patches across the fur.

"Arckdem yim!" My 'bi-cat' demanded again, his slitted red eyes narrowing at me.

"Ordinem!" Ax piped up, all three cats turning to him. "Ordinem, alkein unirna."

His cat looked to mine, lowering his spear walking up to Ax and sniffing him over. He seemed satisfied and nodded, the other two lowered their weapons, letting out mews in what I assumed was curiosity.

"What did you tell them?" I asked, and the tiger guy started sniffing my hair.

"That we were friends from a distant world." Ax said, shrugging, as his cat tried to take his glasses, growling lightly when Ax stopped him.

"They're really curious." Jake said, jumping as his cat licked his cheek. "Okay, that was gross."

"Should I scratch behind their ears? Anyone got catnip- hey! Don't do that!" I jumped back as my cat got a little 'too' friendly.

"Now what?" Jake asked.

"Terra's out." I said firmly, as tiger got bored with me and started looking at my clothes and things I brought with me, picking at me here and there. "They seem intelligent enough."

"Agreed." Ax said. "Though if they're friendly, it wouldn't hurt to learn some things if we can. We're also trying to make allies, as well as find things we may not have on Earth like medicines. Humans are not being as- restricted, as the Andalite's are."

"Well, go ahead Mr. Translator." I said, gesturing at him.

"Uh- shintme alerakim?" Ax asked, looking towards his cat. His ears flicked and turned to tiger who seemed to be the leader. Tiger nodded, picking up his spear and headed off towards the woods, gesturing for us to follow.

We trailed after him- them, through the forest. They tried talking to us, with only Ax able to respond.

Wow! Guys, there's like- a village just in the next clearing! These cat guys are everywhere.

Laughter, singing, and meowing reached our ears as we followed a small path, the trees thinning out.

The- buildings, were just large mounds make out of hardened dirt, the trees around us created a canopy above the small village, hiding it from sight from Tobias, filtering the light down in a light green shade. Young children were running about, adults going about their chores. We were lead through the village, some of the bi-cats stopping and looking at us in wonder as we passed.

Tiger said something to Ax who nodded. "They are taking us to their pride leader."

"Pride?" I snickered and Ax shrugged.

"Closest word in english."

The village slowly congregating around us, their eyes watching in fascination, adults holding back their children in case of danger.

Tiger disappeared into the largest mud dwelling, Jake's white cat gesturing for us to follow before going in after him.

Inside it was almost totaly dark, the only light coming through the open door. The ground under our feet was squishy, like walking on mud, but dry.

A large gray 'cat' with very fluffy fur and white markings sprawled out on his side lazily. Bits of what I assumed was food, meat possibly, was laying around him. Five other 'cat's', these ones female, sat around him, running their claws and tongue through his fur grooming him. The females didn't even bat an eye at us, as the gray cats bright green eyes roamed over to us.

"Hintra? Ostrangra?" He boomed, looking at tiger (or rather Hintra). He responded back, the larger cat looking even more curious. He lumbered to his feet, shaking his fur, stepping towards us. Hintra pointed to Ax, saying something else.

The gray cat flicked his ear, leaning in closer, sniffing Ax over, giving his cheek a quick lick before stepping back, a deep laugh burst from his lips, as he seemed to greet Ax who replied back.

"He says his name is Sontar, leaded of this pride." Ax said to us. He introduced himself, Jake and I and the cats looked at us even more curiously.

"Marco?" Hintra said slowly, blinking his red eyes at me.

"Yeah. I'm Marco." I said, smiling pointing at myself.

Hintra smiled, pointing his own finger to his chest. "Hintra!"

The white cat moved to Jake, pointing to his chest as well. "Corkina!"

Ax must of explained that Jake and I couldn't understand them, because they stopped talking so much, using gestures instead. The cats moved about us, picking at our clothes, waiting for us to respond to them, repeating back the words happily, before moving onto something else. When they finally satisfied their curiosity, Sontar growled out something and Hintra and Corkina left us, their tails flicking behind them excitedly.

Sontar babbled away to Ax, waiting patiently for him to translate for us. "He- wants us to eat with him."

"I thought you said to not eat or drink anything?" I said, as Sontar gestured for us to sit, which we did.

"I did, and we really should not." Ax said biting his lip. "But I think we'll insult him if we say 'no'."

"What about Marco and I?" Jake asked. "Tell him I'm the- pride leader, and I need to eat first. If there's something wrong with the food, I can just go morph."

"Unless it takes more than a few minutes." I muttered. Ax finally nodded. "I suppose that's all we can do." and relayed the message to Sontar, who sized Jake up, before giving out a resounding laugh again, chatting back to Ax who snickered lightly.

"What?" I asked.

"He said he already knew that. You and I are too- well, weak looking to be pride leaders." Ax snickered.

"Great, I'm getting insulted by a cat." I grumbled and Ax laughed again.

Hintra and Corkina came back, carrying a wooden bowel for each of us. Sontar was given his first, then Jake, Ax and then me. I stared down at the green slime-like substance. I looked over at Jake who looked a little green.

Sontar took a great gulp, licking his lips with a large pur, staring at Jake expectantly.

"You first, oh Pride Leader." I grinned at him, and grimaced before quickly moving the bowel to his lips and taking a great gulp.

He gagged, hiding it behind his hand as he swallowed, his eyes watering up. Sontra gave out a deep laugh turning to Ax and I. We looked to Jake who nodded, still looking a bit sick.

"Bottoms up." I groaned, tapping my bowel to Ax's, and pressed the bowel to my lips. It was really, really gross. It was like swallowing jello-that had not yet solidified, and tasted like- a mix between grass, with a hint of mint and dandelion steams. And yes, I know what they taste like, Jake dared me to try one when we were ten. The liquid slid down my throat slowly, no matter how many times I tried to swallow it faster, the taste overwhelming.

"That was awesome!" I chocked, as the mouthful slid to my stomach.

I heard Ax gag beside me as he covered his mouth.

"I's not so bad now." Jake said, his voice sounding a little slurred. "I feel very warm."

"You sound drugged Jake." I giggled, as I wiggled my fingers in front of me, suddenly feeling very warmth and comfortable. "I could go to sleep, right now, seriously."

"I too, feel very relaxed." Ax said lazily, stretching his arms above himself. Sontar watched us, before laughing in delight, saying something to Ax who replied with a goofy grin on his face. Sontar only laughing harder.

"I think, we might have made a mistake." I said, but I didn't feel like. I felt so _good_! All I needed was a nice comfy place to lay down, have a nap. Or maybe I should go outside-

Sontar took another drink from his bowel, gesturing to Jake who followed again, gagging a lot less this time.  
"Shouldn't do that!" I sang to him, and he grinned at me.

"Damage has already been done!" He sang back, and we fell into peels of laughter. Ax shrugged, taking another drink from his bowel, gagging just as bad, making Sontar laugh again.

The laughter and singing starting again from outside, putting me into an even better mood. I looked around the dwelling again, feeling fascinated despite there was nothing to look at.

One of the females moved over to Ax, running her hands through his long hair, starting to play with it, twisting strands into braids as she purred, Ax's eyes slowly slipped closed.

"Hey! That looks like fun!" I exclaimed, shifting to Ax, playing with his hair too. The female giggled at me, as another female moved over to Jake, frowning at his short hair.

"Imnda?" She asked, her voice like chimes in the wind.

"She's asking where all your fur is." Ax said lazily, his eyes still closed as the female and I continued to play with his hair.

"Oh. I could always morph something with hair. Maybe the tiger. Hintra might like that." Jake said slowly, as the female behind him started to purr, running her hands over his hair.

I looked to the female sitting behind Ax and pointed to myself. "Marco."

She smiled, showing off her canines and pointed a finger to herself. "Sainta."

Ax raised his hand. "Ax."

Sainta smiled, placing her hand on top of Ax's head. "Ax." she looked at me. "Marco."

"Very good." I said, smiling at her, and hers widened.

The girl playing with Jake's hair stabbed him on the shoulder with her claw making look at her as she scowled. "Kima!" she said sharply.

"I think she feels left out." Ax giggled.

"I'm Jake." he said to her.

"I'm Jake?" she said back slowly, poking him again.

"Uh. No." He shook his head. "Jake."

She smiled, nodding. "Jake!" she said finally, pushing his head forwards so she could play with his hair.

We sat around in a comfortable silence, broken only by Kima and Sainta's purring.

Absently, I took another drink from the bowel, shuddering at the taste, but the slime went down better this time. The warmth and peacefulness spreading out farther.

"I want to go outside!" Jake exclaimed suddenly, and I nodded in agreement, Ax relaying out message to Sontar, who laughed in delight, nodding to him.

"Let us go Marco!" Ax said happily, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet and back outside in the nice, warm sunlight.

"Oh, it's so nice out here." I exclaimed, spreading my arms out, spinning in a circle, loosing my balance and falling to the ground. Ax doubled over, laughing at me Hintra and Corkina (who followed us out), laughed too.

I laid there on the ground, looking up at the dark blue sky, my hands under my head.

"Come on Marco!" Ax demanded, grabbing in the front of my shirt. "Let's go look around."

"Alright, alright." I grumbled, getting back to my feet. He grabbed my hand again, pulling me through the village, stopping to chat to a few of the cats standing about who were looking curiously at us.

The whole village congregated around us, a few of the children coming over, rubbing their furred cheeks against our legs, purring loudly, mewing up at us.

"I love this place!" Jake said. "I haven't felt this good in years!"

There you guys are. What happened?

"Tobias!" I shouted, making a few cats hiss in surprise.

Yes Marco. It's me. He said slowly. Are you three alright.

"Oh fine. Never better." I said out loud, spinning around in circles trying to catch sight of the bird.

Right. And your acting like a ballerina because-?

"Lighten up bird-boy!" I laughed, grabbing Ax around the waist, spinning him in circles with me, impulsively rubbing my cheek against his. He laughed, rubbing his cheek on mine as well.

"Oh, look at this!" Jake exclaimed, moving over to the edge of the clearing, were a bunch of plants, like cat-tails, with purple heads on the, were growing. He turned to us, a silly grin on his face, spread out his arms and fell straight back into the bushes disappearing in a puff of purple pollen.

A few of the children laughed in delight, bounding over, their tails swishing happily as they pounced him, a grunt coming from no where.

You're acting like a bunch of- cats. Tobias laughed. I blew a raspberry towards the sky, spraying Ax in spite, and Tobias laughed harder. Whatever you're on, I want some!

"Green slime! Good for bad moods! Hey, we should take this stuff back and give it to people with depression!" I said in delight, Ax laughing as I continued to spin him.  
"Marco! I am getting dizzy!" He shouted at me, and I let go, he stumbled back a few steps before falling to the ground, a couple of kids pouncing on him as soon as he hit.

"This is so nice." Jake said, coming up beside me, his hair dyed purple.

"I wonder if its that stuff we drank?" I wondered, watching Ax struggle under about five cubs. "Hopefully it's not addictive."

"We'll worry about that later. Too late now." Jake said, slapping my back.

I have a feeling O'Neill wouldn't like this. Tobias said. On the upside, I found some food. Well, a kind of rodent anyways. Quiet tasty too.

"I wish he would stop talking." I said to Jake who snickered.

I heard that.

"Are you going to help me!" Ax shouted at Jake and I. Laughing, we helped Ax, picking the kids up and they ran off, finding some other game.

I helped Ax to his feet, his glasses crooked and covered in dust. "Well that was fun." he remarked, wiping the glasses on my shirt since his was dirty.

"Your hair's all messy." I laughed, patting it down. He smiled at me, his eyes dancing.

We relaxed in the purple cat-tails, warmth by the sun and the sweet smell of the plants, Ax rested his head on my chest, a few cubs curling around Jake and we slowly, we drifted into sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: I am up to my ears in homework and completely forgot about updating last week. Sorry guys :(

Chapter 11

I groaned, covering my eyes with my arm as the sun blazed down on me. I blinked them opened, the color purple blinding my vision.

Something shifted at my side, and I looked down in surprise to see Ax, sleeping soundly against me. I smiled, closing my eyes again.

I must had drifted off, because the next time I woke it was a jab to the side as Ax shot up. His face was red as he turned from me.

"Good morning- or afternoon, I'm not sure." I said, sitting up behind him. He mumbled back, his face still slightly red. I grinned at his back getting to my feet. There was a fire going in the clearing, the smell of whatever they were cooking waft into my nose, making my mouth water.

Bout time you two got up. Tobias said, sounding really bored. Jake woke up hours ago. He's trying to help the woman cook and they keep getting mad at him.

We got out of bushes, a few of the cats smiling at us, their tails flicking.

Jake was by the fire, sitting beside it as a few of the woman tended to a large pot held over it.

"So I'm assuming what we had wasn't food?" I said, sitting next to Jake.

"Apparently not." Ax replied. "The translator chip must have got the word wrong. I apologize."

"No harm done." Jake said, then looked thoughtful. "I think."

"Let's not risk it by taking more." I suggested and the other two nodded.

The soup was served, Jake and I taking the first bites Ax waiting until we gave the 'okay'. The soup wasn't bad, a little gamie with a hint of dirt, but my stomach welcomed it. When I finished my bowel Tobias took great delight in saying. You do realize you just ate rodent stew right? I rejected the next bowel offered to me, Tobias snickering evilly in my mind. Jake too refused another bowel, Ax simply shrugged and took another, Jake and I staring at him.

"What?" He exclaimed. "Humans eat cows, pigs, birds, fish- and you get creeped out by rodents?" He took a couple of mouthfuls, stating his point.

"Guess it is better than army rations." Jake conceded, but still didn't take another bowel.

"Perhaps we should go back to Destiny." Ax said. "They are a ruling race, though primitive. There is nothing to be gained here. But I do think I should take a sample of that slime back, just to make sure there are no side-effects." he said, thoughtful.

"Yeah, that'd be great." I grumbled, taking a wooden cup, taking a drink of a sweet liquid that was definitely not water, but just as refreshing.

"I wonder what this is?" I said, and Ax took a sip from my cup.

"Most likely the pulp from a planet, like Aloe back on Earth." he said, handing it back to me. "If the water is not drinkable without some sort of filtration, they need hydration from something."

We met with Sontar once more, Ax saying our goodbyes for Jake and I, thanking him for his hospitality. Ax packed away a vial of the green goo, Sontar also giving him a pouch of something.

Finally. I'm bored out of my skull up here. Tobias grumbled.

Ax (who had a better sense of direction than Jake or I), lead us back through the forest, Tobias grumbling the whole way.

The ship came into sight and Ax opened the door, letting Jake and I in. As Ax settled in the pilots seat, Tobias walked in fully human now.

"You guys suck." He grumbled. "Next time I'm joining in."

"Yes Tobias, I'm sure the big kitty-cats would love fried bird for dinner." I said, rolling my eyes, as he buckled himself in. The door closed, the ship powered up and Ax took off, heading through the atmosphere, searching for Destiny who was floating off closer to the next planet rather than over Terra.

"Team One. Nice to see you again." My dads voice said. "You might as well come aboard, Gilese g is out."

"Copy that." Ax replied, sighing lightly. Destiny's fighter doors opened up and Ax gently landed the fighter, the doors closing behind us, flashing lights and warning going off inside the hanger.

As turned off the fighter, the engines powering down, before he sat there, staring out the window, watching the flashing lights.

"What now?" Jake asked.

"We need to wait for the oxygen to build back up." Ax said simply.

"Oh, yeah. That would be good." Jake said, nodding, and I smacked the back of his head. After a moment, the red lights stopped flashing. "Alright Team One. You're good." My dad said. "We'll see you in a few minutes."

Ax opened the door, slinging his pack over his shoulder and we headed out, climbing up the stairs and heading towards the bridge, people wandering the halls greeted us, soldiers saluted.

The door opened to the bridge and we were met with a thunderous applause, the crew standing on their feet, and I saw a look of relief come over my dads face.

"Colonel? Any incidents?" O'Neill asked, nodding to Ax.

"No, sir." He replied.

"Except for these three getting high on whatever the locals gave them." Tobias said, collapsing into a nearest chair. O'Neil was beginning to look furious, Ax taking a step back.

"We thought it was food, and we would have insulted them if we didn't take it." he explained quickly. "I brought some back to test it though."

"I want a full report Colonel." O'Neill said, his teeth clenched.

"Yes, sir." Ax said, looking at the ground.

"So, I guess Terra is out?" Jesse asked, sounding a little disappointed.

"Yeah. There's a race of bi-pedal cats." I said, the four of us laughing at the bug-eyed look of the crew and we sat down to explain.

"The whole Gliese system is a bust." Dan exclaimed, throwing his pen down. "Terra was perfects except for the Cat people."

Ax took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. Gliese 'b's' atmosphere was had a high acidity rate, making every rain fall deadly, and Gliese 'e' was ruled out because the surface temperature rivaled that of the Sahara desert, and that was during the planets night.

"Gliese d was ruled out long ago so-" My dad trailed off and Ax nodded tiredly.

"There is one more planet." Ax said slowly. "Though NASA is not sure if we are able to live on it, despite it being in the habitable zone."

"Where is it?" O'Neill asked.

"Not far. It would take us almost two weeks, if not more, to get there by Z-Space."

"Your talking about 23 Librae." Jessie said, writing in her notes. "Might as well take a look while we're here."

"Alright. Someone explain, slowly." I reminded, pointing a finger at Ax.

"We are currently traveling around the constellation Libra. The Gliese solar system, the one we're in now, is the closest. 23 Librae is next with two planets in its habitable zone, but that of course does not mean anything. " he paused, his eyes glazing for a moment.

"What is it Colonel?" O'Neill asked.

"Nothing, was just doing some calculations. I cannot be sure the Andalite's have already gone to the Librae system." Ax said finally with a sigh. "It is close though, and there are a few things we need to worry about as we travel farther out into the galaxy."

"Like?" O'Neill asked, clicking his pen.

"The Yeerks." Ax pointed out. "Their homeplanet is here in the milky way. The Kelbrid's as well, who are enemies of the Andalite's and will see humans as one too with the treaty."

"Who are the Kelbrid's?"

Ax shrugged. "I really do not know. Andalite's are taught that Kelbrid space is off limits as it were. They stay out of each other's way as long as neither side breaks the rules. Though the Kelbrid's hate the Yeerks as much as the Andalite's."

"Then why are they enemies?" Ax shrugged again. "But you know where their- space, is?"

Ax nodded. "Yes I do, and I have already told navigations to avoid those coordinates."

"Very well." O'Neill sighed, getting to his feet. "Set a course for Librae, once in Z-space have the secondary crew take over and get some rest. Dismissed."

Ax motioned to me and we fell into step, heading towards his quarters. Ax made us cups off coffee, just setting it in my hands when Destiny gave a lurch and we were back in Z-space.

"A little close to the Andalite's?" I asked him and he nodded.

"A little, but as long as we follow the treaties and cause no problems for the Andalite's, they should leave us be." He sighed, sitting in a chair, cradling his cup in his hands, closing his eyes.  
"Unless they think we're turning into the Yeerks and blow us out of the sky." Ax cracked a small smile.

"Doubtful."

We sat in silence, drinking out coffee's, as I looked out a blank whiteness.

"This mission is going to take a long time, isn't it?" I sighed and Ax nodded.

"Yes, though every two years we're supposed to go back to Earth for maintenance on Destiny. Though it's doubtful she'd ever need it unless we were attacked."

"So we may not even find another planet in this galaxy." Ax hesitated, but nodded.

"Even the Andalite's have not left the Galaxy yet." he said. "But, there are not many planets that fit the criteria of a habitable planet, one that can sustain life, and there are plenty of factors needed to be considered." He shrugged. "It could be that Terra was the last candidate, many other planets having already been discovered and exploited by the Andalite's and the Yeerks."

"What if we leave the Milky Way?" I asked.

"We would loose all communications with Earth for one. Two, that is uncharted space where we have no clue what to expect. At least here in the Milky Way, we can be prepared. But- well, space is unpredictable." he finished simply, raising his cup towards the window.

"I'll drink to that." I said, raising my glass too.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

I was sprawled out on one of couches in the lounge, staring blankly out a white nothing. Librae was another bust, Ax hadn't even suggested going down to the planets, saying the air was too high in toxic gases to be safe.

So now, we were jumping through space, going to stars that _might _have a habitable zone within 100 light years from Earth, so far, we had been to three stars so far, with no planets capable of sustaining life. At least human life.

I guess the great thing about being stuck on a ship flying through space is that you either get close to the people you live with, or face the wrath of O'Neill. Tobias and Jake's relationship was better, though Tobias still resented taking orders from Jake. Ax and I? Well, maybe our relationship wasn't quiet where I wanted it to be, but it was getting there.

The scientists were happy, collecting data from planets even if we couldn't go down to the surface, but the men and woman from the military seemed just as bored as I was

"That's it." I exclaimed out loud,jumping to my feet. Luckily, there was no one in the lounge with me and I headed out to the corridor, striding down to Ax's quarters bursting in without knocking.

"Alright, I'm bored. You need to entertain me!" I announced, flinging myself into one of the chairs.

"Perhaps you should learn something?" Ax suggested, looking from whatever he was going.

"Like what?" I asked, looking over at him.

"Well, you could learn more about the engine's, the weapons. Anything."

"No that sounds like work. I'm a grunt, not a scientist." I sighed as Ax shook his head, looking back down.

"Come on! There's got to be something to do." I groaned and Ax sighed, placing his pen down and turned his full attention to me. We stared at each other before I grunted. "Alright I have no ideas."

"Marco, there must be something you can do." Ax laughed, getting up and moving to the small fridge he had, pulling out two bottles of water handing one to me.

"I've already done it, asking you to entertain me."

He huffed, "Fine, lets go for a walk then."

"Better than nothing." I said, getting up and we headed out. We must have spent hours wandering around the ship, Ax explaining some of the technology I wasn't familiar with.

"There is one more room." He said hesitantly. "Your father helped me with it-"

"You have a secret room?" I laughed and he looked sheepish. "Show me!"

He lead me through one of the maintenance corridors, pressing his palm against the wall and a door you couldn't see slid open, a blast of warm air rushing out at us. Silently, Ax lead me through, the door closing behind us. In the semi-darkness I followed him up a set of stairs, the room area getting brighter as we ascended.

"You liar." I laughed as we came to a blue-green grass waved in an invisible wind, trees that looked like asparagus scattered about.  
He didn't say anything, just watched me move around the room which, excluding the whole glass walls, looked exactly the dome we originally found Ax in. "I guess it would be hard to let go." I whispered as I felt him move beside me.

"No, not fully." He breathed.

I turned to look at him our eyes connecting. We stood in silence before he smiled.

"Marco?"

"Hmm?"

"Either kiss me, or let me go back to work."

I gathered him up, relishing his arms around me, and captured his lips in mine.

'BANG, BANG, BANG'

I groaned, throwing the blankets over my head, trying to go back to sleep.

'BANG'

"Colonel? We have a situation!"

'BANG, BANG'

A groan beside me and the bed shifted.

"Colonel!"

"Yes, I hear you!" Ax shouted from beside me and I sighed, opening my eyes to see him sit up, placing his glasses on his nose, throwing the blankets back and getting out of bed.

"Can't we just ignore it? I was having a wonderful dream about this guy- really cute, amazing kisser-"

Ax smiled, leaning over me and placing a kiss on my lips. "Something must have happened. I must go."

"Fine, fine. I'm coming." I groaned, getting out of bed.

Hurriedly, we made our way to the bridge, the sight of space met us. "Uh, thought we were supposed to be in Z-space for a couple more days?" I asked, walking up to Jake and Tobias who were already there.

"We were." Tobias said. "No one's answered our questions though."

"What is happening?" Ax asked, placing a headset on.

"I don't know Colonel. Harry and Al must have taken over controls!" Jessie shouted.

"Where's O'Neill?" Ax demanded.

"He's coming." My dad answered.

The door opened, O'Neill and Harry coming through.

"What's going on Colonel?" He demanded.

"I do not know. I have only just go here."

"Harry, did you guys slow us down?" Dan asked, and Harry shook his head, moving to the navigation controls.

"No. The Z-Space engines should be working, we can't find anything wrong!" He said in frustration, tapping away at the keyboard.

"General!" My dad shouted suddenly, "There's a transmission coming through, I can't stop it."

The screen showed a dark purple, creature, its skin scaled and wrinkled, like a dinosaurs. It's face was very similar to a humans, but with no lips, and eyes that gazed at us in a mocking-laugh.

"Drode!" Jake hissed, and my stomach sank.

"Well, well, well." Drode said slowly. "Jakey! What a pleasant surprise. My Master is very impressed by you and your little band of Animorphs, showing those Yeerks, good on you. Too bad what happened to Rachel, she was my Master's favorite." he wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.

"I am General O'Neill Commander-"

"Of the Human vessel Destiny, yeah yeah. I'm not talking to you." Drode eyes moved back to Jake. "You have angered my Master, Jakey."

"What do you want Drode?" Jake said coldly, his eyes narrowing at the creature.

"Now, now. You're the one in a tin-can Jakey." Drode said, faking a yawn, looking at his claws. "You see Jakey, your little pet Andalite changed the time-line too much, and the plans Crayak had for you all have been ruined."

"Oh too bad." I said snidely. "I'll make sure to put a card in the mail for him."

"Shush Marco. Let mommy and daddy talk now." Drode said, wagging a finger at me.

"I asked you: what do you want, Drode?" Jake snapped impatiently.

"Fine, fine. You see, the Ellimist has taken a great interest in Earth, and whatever the Ellimist finds interesting, Crayak must destroy. The Yeerks failed, and are now too scared of Humans to go near there again. But-" A wide grin split over his face, showing every tooth he had. "Well, lets just say Crayak has another idea."

The screen flashed suddenly, a ship that looked exactly like Destiny was floating on screen, hiding behind a moon, a beautiful planet beneath her.

"No-" Ax breathed.

"Aha! And the Andalite-pet figures it out!" Drode crowed, the screen splitting to show both him and the fake Destiny. "How bad would it be for Earth if they're new allies turned against them?"

"What is he talking about?" Jake demanded, grabbing Ax's arm, who stood frozen in place.

From the right of the screen, an Andalite Dome ship started to appeared, the radio crackling.

"This is War-Prince Inack. Unknown vessel identify yourselves!"

"Reed! Find a way to stop that transmission!" O'Neill demanded, my dad tapping away at the keys.

"Oh, don't worry General. It's not really you. Oh no, rather a new player has come onto the chessboard." Drode crowed again.

The radio crackled. "This is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill of the human vessel Destiny."

The whole crew stopped, turning to Ax whose eyes were wide in shock. It was Ax's voice coming through the speakers.

"What is going on here!" O'Neill demanded angrily.

"Aximili!" Prince Inack exclaimed, anger creeping into his voice. "You are not supposed to be in Andalite space! You have five minutes to leave our space or face the consequences!"

"Oh, I know _Prince_." Ax's voice said coldly. "I am here for a little- revenge."

"Revenge? You are out of line, traitor! Four minutes or we will open fire!"

We all watched with bated breath as we watched 'Destiny's' weapons power up.

"Disengage!" Inack demanded. "Any attack-"

He never finished. 'Destiny's' weapons fired, hitting the Dome Ship straight on, the ship hovered there a moment, before a serious of explosions ignited through the ship, breaking it almost completely apart, the pieces falling towards the planet.

We watched 'Destiny's' Z-space engine's light up, before she disappeared in a flash. Drode laughing face and the falling Dome Ship up on screen as we stood in silence.

"Navigations!" O'Neill snapped suddenly. "Make a course back to Earth. NOW!"

"Ah, ah!" Drode said, wagging a finger a them. "That would be cheating."

With a jolt that threw me off my feet, we were suddenly back in Z-Space.

"Engine's back on, full power." Harry said in amazement, climbing to his feet. Drode's face was still on screen, the Dome Ship gone now.

"I can't make this too easy for you." Drode cackled.

"I thought you couldn't interfere!" Jake screamed at Drode. "It's against the rules!"

Drode laughed again. "Oh, Crayak is doing nothing. Just suggesting. My Master is very good at suggestions. And building Alliances." He grinned. "Have fun, crew of Destiny. I hope you make it home safe." He said, giving the impression of pouting before the transmission cut off.

"I'm going to ask again." O'Neill said slowly. "What is going on!" He finished off, yelling.. Jake and Tobias tried to fill in the crew on the Ellimist, Crayak and the Drode. I turned to Ax, just in time to watch him collapse, catching him before he could fully hit the floor.

"They are going to think I did this-" He breathed, his whole body shaking. "The Andalite's wont take this, they will declare war-"

"Sh, Ax." I said softly, holding him tightly. "We'll figure it out."  
"Reed, send a transmission to Earth. Tell them what happened, have them contact the Andalite's and plead our case. Navigations! Get us back to Earth!"

No one answered, but the tapping of keys and murmured voices started up, Ax still curled up against me.

"Sir, we have a problem." My dad said uneasily. O'Neill sighed. "What now?"

"Transmission has been sent. But the computer is telling me- well, sir, it wont give me a estimated time of arrival."

Ax's head shot up as everyone fell silent, he turned his eyes to me, fear building up.

I sighed. "I take it we're not in the Milky Way anymore?"


	13. Chapter 13

AN: A little late? Ah well. Just so you all know we're getting closer and closer to the one chapter I have been stuck on for the last couple of _months_ -bites nails- I'm so afraid it's going to turn out as rubbish trying to work it all out!

Anyways, that's later! Onto chapter 13!

Chapter 13

The crew was working overtime, trying to find a way to get out of Z-space and back towards home. But the longer we stayed, the farther away we got.

Right now, Jake, Tobias, Ax and I were sitting in Jake's quarters, the door locked to give us some privacy.

"I just don't get it." Tobias sighed. "The humans are no match for the Andalite's, turning them against us would be slaughter."

"That would, most likely, be the point." Ax said, his voice flat.

"But why? Why not sent the Howlers? Or any other creature to invade again?"

"What better way to get one over the Ellimist? Turning his own pawns against each other." Jake sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"How did he do it?" Tobias wondered. "That was Ax's voice, there's no mistaking it."

"I don't know." Jake sighed, rubbing his eyes harder, finally, he slammed it down on the table, looking up to the ceiling. "Some help would be really nice!" He yelled.

We waited for a heartbeat, Jake closing his eyes. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"Is there anyways to tell how far out we are?" I asked Ax, who shook his head.

"Well, yes. But we need to leave Z-Space though."

"So, lets just, slow down." Tobias said, and Ax slammed a hand down on the table.

"It is not as simple as that!" he exclaimed. "Which is the whole problem!"

"Maybe the question is, is what are we going to do about the Andalite's?" I said. "For all we know, they're packing up their ships right now and heading to Earth. Maybe, and I'm sorry Ax, but maybe the Andalite's will think Ax went rough on us or something. But-"

"I bet the first thought they'd have would be the Yeerks." Jake sighed, and I nodded.

"Would Earth believe it though?" Tobias wondered. "The President asked us to be on this mission, would he believe the ones who saved Earth would condemn it a second time? Even if they thought Ax could do this, there's a small army in here, it wouldn't be hard to stop one person."

"The Andalite's might not- communicate with Earth." Ax said quietly.

"What?" Jake demanded.

"Two Dome Ships could sit in orbit and fire. An Andalite would not need to touch ground. The Andalite's might not communicate to Earth or try to question what happened. A full Dome Ship was just destroyed. That is a lot of lives, and none the Andalite's can spare."

"Oh fuck." I groaned. "So, in short for those not paying attention. The Andalite's are probably going to wipe out Earth. They are only 82 light years away, from Earth. We, who could be the only ones with a slight chance to stop this, who knows how many light years from Earth. Hundreds? Thousands? A fleet could be there in less than a couple of weeks. It could take us years! Seems like Crayak has all the advantage here!"

"See, I'm not getting this either!" Tobias exclaimed. "How can he do this? He can't interfere like this, as Jake said, isn't it against the rules?"

"But- he might not be." I said slowly. "Think about it. The Ellimist wanted to protect Earth so badly, he manipulated our time-lines so we could protect it, to Crayak who manipulated the Yeerks into coming in the first place.

"Well, what if Crayak simply made an alliance with some other evil that we don't know about?"

"So, you're saying that whoever the other 'Ax' was, could have been Crayak's new pawn?" Jake asked, and I nodded.

"We won. Remember what happened the last time we won against Crayak? So, the Yeerks didn't work, let's try this instead. Though, why Drode would take us all the way out here- that's the part that _should_ be against these 'rules'."

Jake groaned. "This is bad. Really bad."

We sat in a grim silence. Was this it? After all that work into saving the Earth from the Yeerks? Just to have it destroyed by the Andalite's?

We jolted in our seats, Ax leaping up staring out the window. "We are out of Z-Space." He breathed, rushing out the door. Quickly we followed him, running to the bridge.

"Where is Aximili?" O'Neill was yelling as we rushed in.

"Here- sir." Ax panted, leaning against the railing.

"Oh. Good, you're all here." O'Neill waved towards the window. "So, where are we?"

Outside, floating right in the middle of the screen was a blue-brown planet. Not like Earth, think Neptune, only more brown than blue. The air swirled, storms the size of hurricanes ripped across the atmosphere. It also had rings, very similar to Saturn's.

"I do not know, sir." Ax said, staring out of the window.

"The computer is still trying to do the calculations." Jessie said.

"That's very helpful." O'Neill said, rolling his eyes..

We continued to stare out the window, Dan stearing the ship so we turned. The scientists all gasped, and he forced Destiny to a stop, making it so that we would float in one place.

"What?" O'Neill exclaimed.

"It's a blue dwarf." Dan said softly, staring wide-eyed out the window.

"And that is?"

"A star, sir. Theoretically, its what our sun could turn into if it doesn't go nova first." Jack finished, the others nodding. "This- we have no evidence of blue dwarfs, there supposed to be-"

"Theoretical?" O'Neill finished, and Jack nodded again. "All I care about is getting back to Earth. Get those calculations!"

Jake and I moved closer to the windows looking out at the planet and sun.

"Marco." Jake said, keeping his voice low. "This might sound crazy, but are you getting a bad feeling?"

"What? Besides the horror I've been feeling since Drode appeared? Yeah, actually." I stared out the window, my eyes scanning the empty space.

"I- I don't believe this!" Jessie cried from beside me, making me jump slightly.

"What?" I asked her.

"The computer, it- it's malfunctioning." She said, clicking away at the keys. "It wont give me any kind of data, and what it does give me is taking forever!"

Ax appeared at my side, leaning over her shoulder frowning at the screens.

"Could Drode have done something?" I asked him. "For all we know we could be right next door to our solar system, but without computers we'd never know."

"That could be possible-" Ax said slowly. "But I do not think so. There is something else going on here."

He nudged Jessie out of her seat, his fingers flying over the keys, tapping into a whole different system than what she was using.

It was quiet a few minutes before Ax exclaimed, slamming his hands down on the keys. "What is going on?"

"What?" I asked in alarm.

"It is still trying to process my second command!" He said desperately. "I feel like I am using your old computer Marco."

"Hey! She was a good computer!" I said, feinting hurt. Ax ignored me of course, moving away from the computer, letting Jessie sit down again.

He moved to stand back up on his platform, leaning against the railing staring out the window lost in thought.

"I don't get this!" Jessie grumbled to me. "I've spent the last few minutes trying to get this to work-"

"Minutes?" Ax asked, looking down at her, frowning.

Jessie looked at her watch. "Yeah. Five minutes to be exact." She looked at him oddly. "Anyways, the computer is so slow, I can't even get out of the system Aximili was using."

"But I thought these computers were based off of Andalite designs?" Tobias asked confused.

"They are." Jessie said. "Which is why this doesn't make sense!"

The crew spent two hours just trying to get the computer running again, all of them getting more and more frustrated when the computers did nothing. The doors to the bridge opened, and closed but no one payed attention. When it opened again a few minutes later I saw Ax come rushing in, a big piece of paper and a couple of pencils.

He got down on his knees in front of the Commander's chair, right in the middle of the room.

"Colonel? What are you-"

"Shhh!" Ax hissed, as he began to draw, looking out the windows.

My dad moved, looking over Ax's shoulders, as he continued to draw my dad's face got darker. He cursed as Ax sat back, looking up the windows wildly.

"Okay, now what?" O'Neill said.

"Look at the planet!" He said, staring up. I turned.

"Its big blue-brow has rings-"

"Yes. I know, but we came to a stand still once we came out of Z-space, we should not be moving, and yet the planet hasn't moved at all."

I looked again. He was right, the planet was in the exact same spot it had been two hours ago.

"Alright?" Tobias said slowly. "The planet's gravity is pulling us with it?"

"No. Even if we were close enough, no." He pointed back to the planet. "I want you to pay very close attention to the rings and the gases."

I looked harder. It looked like a big ball of gas with rings on it.

"Everything is shifting." My dad said grimly when no one answered.

"Get to the point Ax!" Jake yelled, O'Neill sending him a look.

"The computers! Why are they so slow?" He turned to me. "What if it does not have anything to do with Drode. What could slow down out computers." He looked out the window. "What could change the direction of a planet?"

"Oh fuck-" I breathed. "A black hole."


	14. Chapter 14

AN: Starting to think no one loves me anymore :P

Just kidding, here's the next one!

Chapter 14

The crew panicked. Everyone began working on getting the engines fired up. Harry ran back down to his post, screaming at Al through his headset.

Even O'Neill seemed a little panicked, his knuckles white as he stared out the window, his teeth clenched.

Only Ax seemed to be really calm and when he caught my eye he gave me a small smile. "Do no worry. Though we are fairly close to it, I do believe Destiny will be back on in time."

"Yeah, and how long will that take you figure?" I asked him, and he shifted.

"Well, it will take time." He said, shifting his eyes. O'Neill snapped out of it, glaring at Ax.

"Colonel." He growled and Ax snapped to attention.

"Sir, it may take a little over twenty-four hours to get Destiny's engine's running." He said and silence fell.

"He's right." My dad said nodding.

"Alright. I don't get it." O'Neill said.

"Time gets distorted in a black hole. The closer you are, the worse it is." Ax explained. "If my calculations are correct." He nodded to Jessie where she was yelling at her consol where it was _still_ logged into the system Ax has accessed. "It might take a little longer."

"Go back to the whole time thing." O'Neill said, rubbing his forehead. Ax took in a deep, calming breath and I couldn't help but snicker. Somethings never changed.

"To us, sir, it will seem like it has only been twenty-four hours. But when we move away, we maybe have been stuck here for a lot longer than that. Days, a week even."

"It will get worse the closer we are pulled." My dad added in.

O'Neill nodded. "Right, keep working!"

"So." I said, sliding up to Ax. "What about those sensors that tell you if there's a hole nearby?"

He punched me lightly in the side. "I will fix that once we leave here."

"So. Twenty-hours until we leave, or we get sucked into nothing." I said, clapping my hands. "I'm getting something to eat."

Ax watched after me in amazement as I headed out of the bridge, going straight to the kitchen. I looked in the large walk in freezer, grabbing one of the big tubs of ice cream Jessie demanded we had a supply of.

I was opening it when Ax walked in, raising an eyebrow at me as I sat on a counter, holding a spoon out for him. He shook his head at me, but took it from me, hoping up to sit beside me on the counter.

"I figured I should get some before the girls eat it all." I said, taking a spoon full out.

"A very good idea." Ax said seriously, dipping is spoon in. "Jessie would live off of this stuff if she could."

"You know, the one thing I was really hoping wouldn't happen was to come into contact with a black hole." I said, licking my spoon.

"It happens." Ax shrugged, swallowing his mouthful. "It even happens to the Andalite's. The hole can create a rift in Z-Space like the ones we need to jump from there into real space. The sensors are supposed to pick up on that energy and warn us not to jump out."

"So, the sensors bugged?" I asked him and he shrugged.

"We'll find out in a day or so."

"Great. Our already short countdown has just got a few days shorter." I sighed, taking another spoonful.

"There is another possibility we did not consider." Ax said slowly. "We are assuming the Andalite's would attack Earth, but perhaps they will not, instead they might just come look for us instead."

"Is that good or bad?" I sighed, grabbing a big spoonful this time.

"Well, depends. It would be better for Earth if the Andalite's did not got there. On the other hand, we could have the entire Andalite fleet looking for us."

"Have I mentioned that I'm retired from this crap?"

Ax laughed lightly. "I do not think Crayak recieved that message."

"Remind me to put it in that card."

We ate ice cream until we were stuffed. Ax put it back, grabbing a bottle of wine on his way back.

"I figured this might help more than the ice cream." He said.

"Good thinking." I replied, heading out the door to his rooms.

A knee to the stomach woke me out of a deep sleep. I groaned, rolling over to face Ax, who was fast asleep. He must have been dreaming, his legs twitching.

I watched him, smiling lightly. I wondered what he was dreaming about. Flying maybe? Or maybe he was dreaming about running as an Andalite? Tobias told me once before he regained his morphing powers that he dreamed of being human, even if he never really thought of it during the day.

Gently, I ran my fingers over his cheek, the raised skin from the scar under my thumb. Ax shifted, but didn't wake, and I moved my index finger down to run along the scar. It went farther back than I thought, slanting upwards just after his ear. He never did explain who gave him this one, it was at least three inches long, starting from the middle of his jaw.

Looking down at him, I leaned forwards, placing a small kiss on his lips. He seemed settled enough now, and I wrapped my arm around his waist resting my forehead against his and fell back to sleep.

"Another ten minutes before engines are at full power." Dan announced, "We've been turning Destiny since engines began powering."

"Yes, Daniel we can see that." O'Neill said. The planet was farther over now, not much but we could no longer see the sun.

"We are going to turn far enough?" Tobias asked nervously and Ax nodded.

"Of course. Trust me Tobias."

"I do, I do." Tobias said quickly, sucking in a breath. "I hate space." he muttered under his breath.

"Once again: who was your father?" he sent me a dirty look.

"Five minutes." Dan announced and I watched Ax's grip tighten on the railing. I looked at him and he relaxed, slightly.

"There is always the chance my calculations are wrong." He muttered quietly. I shook my head. "You're never wrong."

The planet slowly moved across the screen, Dan counting down the minutes. When he reached one the craft started to shake.

"Thirty seconds." Dan shouted.

"So, how long is it going to take us away from here?" I asked Ax.

"About half an hour with the engines at full burn." he replied.

"Alright!" Dan said finally. "Engines are at full power, we're heading away from here."

"What about the Z-Space engines?" O'Neill asked.

The members of the crew shared looks between each other, Ax smirking beside me.

"Well you see, sir." Jessie began. "What happens during a black hole is-"

"Theoretical." Kevin supplied.

"Right. So, we were thinking we could stick around for a little bit-"

O'Neill rubbed his temples, trying to hold back his anger. "We are currently in a crisis situation. We do not have time to adhere to your scientific natures!"

"But- sir!"

"Are you questioning my order?" O'Neill asked, sounding very calm all of a sudden.

"No sir." Jessie mumbled, turning back to her consol.

"We most likely would not be able to see it anyways." Ax mumbled to me. "We would have to be pretty far away."

Slowly Destiny moved, at first it felt like we were moving at a snails pace, moving faster the farther we got away.

"Computer's are working fine now." Dan reported.

"Powering up the Z-space engines." Kevin added in. In a few moments we were wrapped up in the white of Z-Space once again. Ax moved over to Jessie's computer again kicking her out of her chair, and sitting down, clicking on the keys.

Jake leaned beside me, "And to think, I used to wish for normals days." he sighed.

"Now we just need to come across an Andalite ship and my day will be complete." I said back and he laughed at me.

"Our computers are going to be stuck a few days behind at least." Ax sighed finally, turning towards O'Neill, "Without a point of reference, I cannot fix that."

O'Neill looked at him. "So?"

"I can not be sure how much time has gone past outside of the black hole." Ax said, letting Jessie have her chair. "We could have been- out of time, for weeks."

"Even still, going back to Earth is the only thing we can do unless we get some new information." O'Neill sighed.

"And if they come after us?" I asked, O'Neill turned to me in surprise. "How much supplies do we have? Enough to last us two years, maybe a couple more if we ration? Also, the only reason that Dome Ship was shot down was because they weren't expecting an attack right over their homeworld, but if one were to find us now? We'd never win."

Jake and Tobias nodded. O'Neill thought for a moment before turning to Ax, "Well?"

"The only thing we could do is jump into Z-Space." He shrugged. "But Marco is right, Destiny was not designed to take on a Dome Ship. A Yeerk Pool Ship, sure. Also, I cannot be sure how far we are from Earth, the computers-" Ax stopped, a pained look on his face.

"The computers are locking us out." My dad finished. "Whatever that- thing, Drome?"

"Drode." I supplied.

"Yes, him. Either he did something to our systems, or the combination of him jumping up somewhere random in space and coming into contact with that black hole disrupted the computers tracking system."

"So, we're lost." O'Neill said, looking at Ax.

"Basically."

O'Neill stood to his feet, nodding towards Ax. "Then I leave it in your hands Colonel. Get us home."

"Yes, sir."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

This was getting ridiculous. I mean, it's one thing to be lost out in space, it's another when your boyfriend ignores you. It had been about five months now of us jumping to and from Z-space, looking for any signs of familiarity. There was none of course, which increasingly frustrated Ax.

I opened the door to the sitting room, a few soldiers taking a break were the only ones there.

"Have you seen Ax? Aximili?" They looked a little confused, "Colonel Isthill?" They all shook their heads and I turned back down the corridor.

I looked in my quarters, in Ax's, and I even looked in Jake and Tobias'. No boyfriend. I leaned against the wall. Where could he be?

An idea dawned on me and I headed back down the hall, stepping through to the maintenance corridor, heading to Ax's secret room.

And there he was, asleep under one of the trees. There were large charts around him, a few books too. I walked over to him, kneeling down. I went to pull his glasses off, but he jolted awake, blinking up at me.

"Oh, Marco." he said, ending in a yawn.

"See, here I was, alone, bored, all by myself, and I was thinking 'I'm going to go bother Ax.' Now, I realize you are already overworked, and I should just leave you here."

"No, do not go." He whined, grabbing my arm and pulling me down beside him. He laid across my chest, resting his head on my shoulder. "I need a pillow."

"Oh, that's just great. Glad to know I'm useful." I grumbled, but wrapped my arms around him.

"I have no idea where we are." he whispered. "None of the star charts match anything out there."

"Hush." I said quietly, running a hand through his hair.

"I do not even know if we are jumping farther away from Earth." he continued, ignoring me. I sighed.

"I thought Andalite's were supposed to be optimistic?" I mumbled. Ax paused, then said quietly.

"I am not Andalite."

I winced. "You were born one. Therefore, you were born with the optimism. You could have at least held onto that when you became human."

He chuckled lightly, settling down again. "There are a lot of things that have changed." he muttered. "Human instincts are very different than Andalite's. I never thought I would get a taste for beef, or any meat for that matter."

"Good to know you wont freak out over a hamburger." I chuckled. "Well, there's one thing that hasn't changed at least. Your brains."

He laughed. "If you mean my intelligence, I will have you know that if I were Andalite, I would not be considered all that intelligent."

"Yeah well, to humans you're a genius."

He laughed again and we settled into silence. I stared up at the ceiling, running my fingers through his hair. I almost thought he was sleep, if he didn't twitch his head away anytime I ran my finger over the scar.

"Ax-"

"My father."

I blinked. "What?"

He turned his head to look at me. "You were going to ask who gave that to me. My first night as a human, he visited the place they had me imprisoned and he simply gave me this. A farewell present." he finished bitterly, setting his head comfortably down again. "A mark of a traitorous son."

"What did he think of Elfangor then?"

Ax snorted. "He does not believe it and probably never will. He believes that Elfangor could never betray his people like that."

"And yet the human son he has says otherwise."

He sighed. "It does not matter. I will never see them again, not that I'd want to, and I most likely have a younger sibling now since there are no more sons in their family."

I tightened my grip around him. "Well, you're always welcome with me. Even stuck out in space."

He looked back up at me, a brilliant smile on his face and he leaned up, grabbing me in a kiss.

Jake and I were sitting at the large kitchen table, a big sheet of paper in between us with tic-tac-toe games drawn all over it. Tobias perched on the chair beside me, preening his feathers.

Ax came in then, stopping in the doorway. "What are you doing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at us.

"Being bored." I grumbled, beating Jake again with the same moves I used the last five games.

The chair beside Jake moved as Ax sat down, resting his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands as he watched us play through a couple of other games. Finally, I put my pen down scowling at Jake. "Seriously man, you suck at being bored."

"Well I-"

"You could of thought of a better game." Jake grumbled, cutting Ax off. "I saw a whole bunch of board games in one of the storage cupboards."

"Why didn't you get one then?" he shrugged, drawing random designs on the paper.

"If you two are done, I have a proposition for you three." Ax said after a moment. We turned to him. "I realize that outside of the mission you have nothing to do-"

"No, really?" I said sarcastically, he ignored me of course.

"Anyways, I figured I would train you guys on how to fly the fighters."

The three of us looked at him, blinking. Then at once, Jake and I jumped to our feet, rushing towards the door. It ended up being a race between him and I, and yeah, Jake totally kicked my butt.

Panting, I watched him walk around, his fists in the air.

"Yeah well, you suck at tic-tac-toe." I shot at him, but he threw me a gloating look.

Footsteps echoed behind me as Ax and Tobias caught up. Tobias had morphed human and they were deep in some conversation.

"Let's go, let's go!" I shouted to them, bouncing on my feet. Ax sent me a fond look moving to the fighter at the far end.

"We'll be out in space long enough to give each a small lesson. Each time we stop long enough we'll come out and do this. Hopefully, you can each be in one by the third lesson."

He opened the door to the fighter, climbing in. Tobias followed, then Jake and me.

"Third lesson?" I asked him as he settled into the pilots seat.

"Yes. It is very easy to fly once you get the basics. It is landing and take-off that are the hardest."

Jake already took the co-pilots seat, strapping himself in as the rest of us did the same.

"Now, watch closely." Ax said to Jake. "The sequence for start-up is very precise, though very short." He pointed to two buttons in front of him. "These will start the engines, you need to press them both at the same time." he pressed his fingers down and the ship rumbled to life.

"Next, you do the systems checks. First is the door." he pressed a button closer to Jake, and the door slide closed, and what sounded like a lock moving into place. "That is the weakest point on the ship besides the window.

He pressed another button and displays appeared on the consol. "These are for everything in this craft: energy to the engines, radar, communications and of course, weapons."

"Awesome."Jake said

"Indeed." Ax smiled. He clicked a few buttons and placed his hands in his lap. "Controls are under your- control Jake." Is it sad that I saw Ax wince slightly at the bad grammar?

"Uh-" Jake looked blankly down at the consol and Ax chuckled.

"Very simple. These controls here-" he pointed out of my sight. "Control the ship, the buttons on the controls are for the weapons, though they need to be activated first." Ax pressed a button on the consol.

"Alright Peter. We are ready."

"Okay Ax." my dads voice crackled. "Gates are opening, have fun you guys."

The alarms went off in the hanger as the large doors opened.

"She's all yours Jake. Just like driving a car."

"Right." Jake said uneasily, taking control of the ship.

"This switch is to hover, you flick it off to go forwards."

"Simple enough." Jake muttered, flicking the switch. Gently we rose into the air, the ship rocking slightly.

"Keep it steady. Now move us out of the hanger."

"Right." Jake flicked the switch and we shot forwards. "It's okay. I got this!"

We slowed down so we were no longer pressed into our seats. We glided along, Jake brought the fighter around so we flew along Destiny. He took us up over the bridge where I saw Jessie give a thumbs up through the window at did a few laps, before Ax took control long enough for Jake and Tobias to switch seats.

Ax went over the few controls again for Tobias, and off we went again, around and around Destiny like a fly around someones head.

"Ax, we can only give you guys another hour." My dad's voice crackled over the speaker.

"Alright. My turn!" I said, unbuckling myself. Ax took control and Tobias sat in my seat while I took the co-pilots.

"Want me to show you the controls?" Ax asked me.

"Nope, I got this." I said, as I began to buckle myself in. I watched Ax smirk out of the corner of my eye.

"Alright." He said, and simply let go of the controls.

Immediately, the nose pointed down, the engines pushing us forwards.

"Whoa!" I yelled, grabbing the controls trying to pull out of the dive.

"Easy Marco." Ax's voice came.

"Right." I said, my body went into auto-pilot, flicking the controls for the engines, powering them down, gently bringing the nose up. The craft slowed, leveling out and I flicked the controls again, engines coming on full burn and I steered us back up towards Destiny's hull.

"Very good Marco." Ax laughed, and I grinned over at him, the fighter flying perfectly now.

"And you didn't want me to fly."

The fighter flew so smoothly, and we flew so fast Destiny was right on top of us in seconds. With a quick turn, I blew us past the bridges windows and towards the back of the massive ship.

"Want to land?" Ax asked.

"Oh hell yeah." I said and he laughed.

"I will be here if you need help."

I lined us up to the opening, powering down the engines. Suddenly I felt like the fighter would never fit through, but I steered, keeping the craft in a straight line.

"There is a marker on the floor, you will see it. Once you are there, turn the engines to hover and you will need to turn it around."

"Sure, easy as pie."

I guided the fighter slowly into place, quickly flicking on the 'hover' button. I'm very proud to say I didn't need Ax's help. He taught me how to shut down all the systems, and we sat there waiting for the air to build back up in the hanger.

"Very good you three." Ax said, turning so he could see all of us. "We will learn how to use the weapons next time."

We were just getting out of the craft as a jolt ran through the craft. We were back in Z-Space.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Yet another solar system. Another place Ax could not recognize.

Two weeks had come and gone ages ago. I lost track of the date after that, but I'm pretty sure have been lost for a couple of months.

We were all in the bridge, Ax was frowning out at the stars, charting the stars, hoping for something recognizable.

Jake turned to me, no doubt asking to go take a fighter out when Jack called out in alarm.

"There's another ship!"

We looked over in surprise.

"Can you see what it is?" O'Neill asked, casting a look towards Ax.

"It's not big enough to be a Dome Ship, sir."

Ax moved over to a consol looking at the radars.

"It could be a Skirt Na." He said.

"Oh great. Pirates." I rolled my eyes, Jake snorted beside me.

"This is a good thing." Ax said, turning to us. "This mean we are still in our galaxy. The Skirt Na also know everything that happens within our galaxy."

"Pirates and gossips. Even better." I grinned at Jake.

"We could contact them sir." Ax continued. "We might have to trade something for information."

O'Neill thought for a moment. "What would they be looking for?"

Ax shrugged. "Anything. If you allow, I have an idea that might please them."

O'Neill nodded. "Alright, go ahead."

Ax nodded to my dad, who sent the call out. Shortly, the screen lite up and one of the Skirt Na was looking back at us.

"Greetings. My name is Colonel Aximili Isthill." Ax greeted it, and suddenly the Skirt Na laughed, or at least I think that was a laugh.

"I have heard of you. Destroyed Andalite ship you did."

Ax winced slightly. "Yes, that is what I was hoping to speak to you about. Any information on the Andalite situation, if you know it."

The Skirt Na eyed Ax. "Have something to trade?"

"Yes, actually. I happen to know of an Andalite outpost full of supplies. I can give you the coordinates if you give me the information I need."

Ax pointedly ignored some of the shocked faces that turned to him, his eyes never leaving the screen. I was slightly- well, no, completely shocked. Giving the Skirt Na, Andalite weapons was as good as just handing them over to the Yeerks himself.

The Skirt Na pondered the request, but I suppose the thought of Andalite supplies was just a too good of a deal.

"Fine. You have deal. Andalite's looking for you. As scary as Yeerks you are." it laughed again.

"Are they going after Earth?"

It hummed. "No, no. Just you."

"Good, thank you. One more thing." The Skirt Na frowned at him, "Where in the galaxy are we?"

It laughed again, good and long this time. "Long ways away from human world. Not so far from the Andalite's."

"Yes, but where?" Ax said impatiently.

"You send location of goods, we send map of Galaxy."

Ax turned to O'Neill, who nodded with a frown. Ax moved to a consol, tapping on the keys.

"There." He he said to the Skirt Na.

"We have. Map given." Transmission was cut.

"They've gone into Z-space sir." Jack announced.

"Bring up that map." Ax said, and Jack nodded. The lights dimmed in the bridge, and a hologram appeared in the middle of the room. The Milky Way spiraled around us, millions of stars blinking around us, the super massive black hole in the center of the galaxy rotated slowly.

"Here we are." Ax said, pointing to a spot above his head. He was at the far end of the room, pointing towards one of the farthest bands of the spiral, "No wonder I did not know where we are. The Andalite's have not come out here yet."

"So, where's Earth?" O'Neill asked.

"Marco? Take two steps forwards." Ax said, motioning to me. I did and he pointed above my head.

"Our galaxy is there."

The crew was silent as Ax gazed around the galaxy.

"Alright, I don't get it!" I called out, feeling nervous.

Ax let out a sigh, turning his attention back to me. The light from the stars around his bounced off his glasses, "We are about 80,000 light years from Earth, give or take a few thousand."

I swallowed. "And how long-"

"Years." Ax said. "Even if we stayed in Z-Space the whole way, it would take us years to get home."

I nodded slowly, falling into silence.

"We do not have the supplies to last us that long." Ax said, turning to O'Neill. "We would have to travel to planets that can sustain life, hoping for food we could eat, which will slow us down even more. On the up side." He turned towards me again, moving to a space almost right next to me. "This is where the Andalite's are, they traveled out towards the right, rather left towards Earth. The Yeerks are also within this area here." He took a few steps over to right. "And any known Yeerk controlled worlds are also around this area.

"Therefore, we need to go around the other way to avoid any of them, and even then, the treaty with Earth Andalite's could have traveled in our way. They could also be guarding our solar system, and if the fleet is looking for us, they will not stop until they have found us, dead or alive. Or if the Skirt Na lied, which is always a possibility, they may or may not already be at Earth."

"The only thing we can do is head back home, and hope for the best." Jake said. "At least now we know what way to go, and what is out there with us. We have enough food to last us, what two years? Maybe a bit more? Lets worry about finding planets when it becomes an emergency."

O'Neill nodded, getting to his feet, "General Berenson is correct. Set a course for Earth, only leave Zero Space when we have to."

"Sir, I'm not sure if Destiny can hold out that long." Jack said slowly. "Especially the Z-Space engines."

"Another thing that will have to wait until it happens." O'Neill stated as the crew turned, beginning our course back to Earth.

The hologram disappeared the lights came back on, just in time for us to enter Z-Space.

"I'm really getting sick of white." I grumbled, moving back up to stand beside Jake and Tobias.

Get used to it. Tobias said, ruffling his feathers. Seems we're going to be seeing a lot of it now.

I stared around at the crew, taking in their expressions and body languages.

"I can see a lot of problems coming our way." I whispered.

I opened an eye, looking towards the window. With a sigh, I rolled over wondering for a moment why I woke up, and tried to fall back to sleep. I tossed and turned a few times, giving up and rolling onto my back. Ax was sleeping beside me peacefully, completely undisturbed from my restlessness.

I looked over at him, his face glowing in the dimmed light of Z-space coming through the shaded windows. Ax's human morph was made up of Jake, Cassie, Rachel and me. He absorbed our DNA and mixed it together. As teenagers, he looked very odd, but over the years his appearance had changed, and even though there were times I could pick out pieces of my friends and I, it wasn't as noticeable as it years ago.  
He was still oddly pretty, and his face never seemed to gown any kind of facial hair what-so-ever, but pretty in a masculine way, definitely nothing like Cassie or the many girlfriends I had.

I gently ran my fingers over his cheek, he stirred but didn't wake. These few months, despite being stuck in space, years from home, had been amazing. Ax, was amazing, and I was so stupid to ignore that before and as a result I almost lost him.

I loved him, and completely terrified of telling him. It used to be so easy, looking a girl in the eyes and telling her 'I love you too', but I never actually meant it. Maybe that's why I was scared? Maybe I thought Ax didn't feel like that? And yet I'm pretty sure I've been his only- well, relationship, which was a little scary on its own.

"Marco?" A soft voice whispered, blue eyes blinking open.

"Good morning." I said softly, brushing my fingers back over his cheek. He yawned, stretching his legs before looking back up at me, his eyes still fuzzy with sleep. I smiled at him, leaning forwards and gently kissing him.

"What is wrong?" he asked, looking at me.

"Nothing." I said softly. "I love you."

He blinked in surprise, and my stomach twisted, but I held his eyes. Finally he smiled back at me, kissing me hard.

"I love you too."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"You're going to pay for that Marco!" Jake yelled at me, and I laughed, piloting my fighter around a moon, hoping Jake didn't see where I went.

"Pay attention then!"

Over the last couple of months, we had become good enough at flying the fighters, Ax allowed us to pilot our own. Then he showed us how to use the weapons.

Great thing about these fighters is that their weapons could be powered down so low, that they probably couldn't even hurt a fly. Literally. Ax built them this way so that the pilots could get extra training in, or for newbies like me, to actually learn how to use them.

Very quickly, Jake and I made a game out of training. Very simple: two teams usually me and Tobias on one, and Jake and Ax on the other. Sometimes members of the crew would come out and join. Our computers would keep track of each shot that would hit our fighter and the winner was determined by how little damage they had taken.

And yes, Ax usually won.

I scanned my computers, Tobias was chasing Ax around the other side of the moon I was hiding around. Where was Jake? I frowned when I didn't see the blip on my screen.

"Marco!" Jake yelled, and suddenly I knew where he had gone to.

"Polo!" I yelled back, putting the fighter into a dive, seeing Jake coming up from under me, quickly I fired two shots, hitting him, and turned away, going full burn back towards Tobias and Ax.

"Ha ha!" I laughed. "All those years of Space Invaders finally paid-"

Two blasts of light hit right beside my head, Ax's fighter blasting over top of me.

"Pay attention Marco!" Ax laughed, sounding a little too pleased with himself.

I grumbled, Tobias coming up beside me. Quickly I nodded at him, and we took off after Ax, me going above and Tobias going under, firing madly after him. He suddenly did a steep dive, curling under Tobias and taking off the other way.

"Well, that didn't work." Tobias grumbled. I saw a few blasts of light burst from my right as Jake aimed towards Tobias, getting him a few times. Tobias took off after him, leaving me alone overtop of the planet we were playing around.

My radar beeped behind me, I didn't look figuring it was Ax coming around. There was no way I could pull off what he just did, but I could shut off power to the fighter, he might over-

"Marco! Watch out!" Ax's voice screamed, and suddenly I was slammed forwards after what felt like a truck slammed into the back of my fighter. A little dazed, my ears rang and I blinked at my consol. Almost every light and warning was going off. I looked up. I had gone into a dive, the planet below me coming up faster.

"Shit-" I breathed, trying to shake the fog from my mind. I grabbed the controls, trying to pull up but they hardly responded.

"Marco! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." I said shakily. "I can't pull out Ax!"

He was silent.

"Ax what was that?" I asked, trying really hard not to panic, my engines weren't responding, neither were my controls and the planet was coming up fast and fast, soon I'd hit the atmosphere.

"I think it was a Bug Fighter, Jake destroyed it before I got a look at it. Marco listen to me. Do a full systems shut down and start up. You are going to have to land on the planet."

"'Kay." I muttered, doing what he said, on systems start up, the alarms immediately started going off again.

"I have one engine, maybe." I said.

"Do not try the controls, you are in perfect alignment to get through the atmosphere. When you reach five thousand feet, turn on the engine full burn, force the craft to land on its belly, preferably over water if you can. Turn your shields on!"

Quickly I flicked them on just as I cut through the atmosphere, fire started to blaze out around me, the shields protecting the hull of the fighter. I watched the altimeter, quickly falling down and when it hit five thousand I slammed on the engine, forcing the crafts nose up, forcing the it forwards instead of down, though I was still falling.

I looked around, trying to find somewhere safe to land, but all that laid before me was sand and dunes. The proximity alert started going off, warning me about how close to the ground I was getting. Landing was going to be rough, but I'd survive.

The engine started to sputter, too damaged to keep struggling, and having no choice, I aimed for the flat plain of sand in front of me, bringing the craft down. The alarm got louder and higher in pitch the closer and closer I got. The fighter slammed into the ground, a blast of brown exploding around me, it skidded along the ground, the hull creaking and shuddering.

After a while I came to a stop, the fighter was turned on its left side and the cabin was dark, buried under the sand. I groaned, unbuckling myself, tumbling onto the glass. I climbed my way over to the door, pressing my hand against the panel.

The planet had breathable air, though it was a desert planet, there was very little vegetation and surface water.

The hatch opened, sand falling into the craft and I climbed out. The first thing that hit me was the heat, the rays from the sun pouring onto my face. I landed on the ground looking back around me. The fighter was almost completely buried, only the tail end of the engines was all that was sticking out.

I gazed up towards the murky brownish orange sky scanning for signs of my friends fighters. My radio had finally taken a hit when I landed, which probably meant the whole craft was useless now. At least there were supplies on the fighter, a batch of army rations and a case of water, enough that would last me probably a week, maybe more, but the scientists had observed the planet and had noticed sand storms so big we could see them from orbit.

Jake and Tobias had been pretty far away from me when I got shot, and I had no idea where Ax had been thinking he had been behind me. It could take them a while to find me.

I sighed, climbing up the craft, sitting beside the open door, the highest point in the desert around me. I folded my arms behind my head, looking up towards the sky. Ax said it looked like a Bug Fighter, but what would they be doing all the way out here? Unless the Andalite's didn't know about this, or it wasn't a Bug Fighter after all.

But if it wasn't the Yeerks, than who was it? Ax was pretty adamant the Andalite's wouldn't be out here this far, then again, because of that, he had no idea what to expect as we traveled, there could be hundreds of alien species that could travel through space, it was only a matter of time before we ran into some of them, and of course, not everyone was going to be friendly.

I watched the sun move across the sky, slowly I stripped off my sweater and then my shirt, using both as pillows. I waited until the thirst became too much before I went in and grabbed a water, taking small sips at a time.

It was eerily quiet, only a slight breeze swirled around me, just as hot as the still air so it wasn't much relief. There was no sound from one of the fighters and the sun was starting to go down fast, the sky lit up in a bright orange.

A strong breeze blew across me and I sat up quickly looking around. I could hear the breeze now, the sand spread ahead of me twisting in little swirls across the landscape.

Quickly I moved into the craft, taking my things with me, shutting the door behind me. I climbed back in my seat the wind howling outside now. I sighed and settled down, staring blankly out the window. I looks like I was in for a long night.

((()))

This heat was awful! I tried everything, sitting as still as I could, using my shirt as a block for the sun, sitting in the shadow of the fighter, sitting in the fighter, nothing blocked this damn heat! I could feel my skin burning and I planned to have a very long, cold shower, when I got back onto the ship.

This was day two out here, and with the sand storm last night my fighter had been covered even more. Now it looked like a huge hill with a hole in the top. I pondered writing an SOS in the sand, but it was too hot for that.

There was no sign of life, no animals of any sort that I've seen so far, not that I went looking I didn't even know if this planet could sustain life, but I guess if there was life in our deserts there could be some here.

This planet wasn't very big, it shouldn't take them too much longer to find me, unless Destiny was getting attacked by whoever got me.

"The sun is frying my brain." I said out-loud, and silence answered me back. Finally, I had enough thinking through my list of morphs. Remembering my cobra I quickly began to morph, my arm melting into my sides, my legs coming together, molding into one. Bones I didn't need melted away as my organs rearranged. I started to shrink as my skin dried and cracked. The sides of my head fanned out, my fangs erupting from my mouth.

As soon as the morph finished I instantly felt better, the sun wonderful to my snake body.

((Hey Jake! Ax! Tobias! I'm really bored so HURRY UP!)) No answer, not that I was suspecting one. I stayed in morph, chatting away to myself, sending out my thought-speak as loud as I could. I demorphed when I figured two hours was almost over, took a drink of water and remorphed.. I sang songs, told myself jokes, counted my times tables.

A few more morphs later the sky began turning more orange than brown and I was too tired to keep it up. I crawled back into the fighter and fell asleep.

It was dark before I was startled awake. I stared around the darkness, my ears straining. I heard a shuffle from outside, my heart pounding in my chest.

It could be Ax, or one of the others, but a voice in the back of my head told me I would have heard the engines. I stayed still, hoping whatever it was would either announce itself or leave.

The scuffling got louder, whatever it was moved up the side of the hull, and a picture popped into my head of Jake halfway through roach morph.

I took a quick look around, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was no room to morph anything but a bug, and I doubt I had time. Only thing left was a saber, which were stored in the back of the fighter. Silently I got up out of my seat, keeping myself balanced with my hands as I slowly moved to the back, the sounds moving across the outside of the ship; it sounded like there was more now.

I reached the storage unit, placing my hand on the panel and quickly grabbing a saber, flicking it on full power and aiming it towards the door.

The scuffling moving across the fighter towards the door. In the darkness I saw two long, thin antenna like things poke through.

"Oh gross." I groaned. "Fucking bugs!"

Slowly, a head emerged behind the three foot long antenna, as large as a dogs head, with a set of pinches, four in total, two on the side, one on top and bottom. It was black, that much I did know, and as it emerged farther into the fighter I saw it's body was like a giant centipedes, with large legs. Not caring whether it was friendly or not, I shot a quick blast from the saber.

The laser struck the thing in its body, and it let out a sort of scream, disappearing back out of the ship. I heard it roll down the side of the fighter, its horrible scream penetrating the dark. Hurrying I rushed to the door, slamming my hand on the panel, closing it.

More sounds outside, it sounded like more of those things had climbed on to the fighter, moving around, looking for a way in.

Praying there wasn't a crack somewhere, I settled into the back of the ship, getting comfortable with the saber in my hands.

"You guys can really hurry up." I mumbled, setting in for a long night.

((()))

I opened the hatch, breathing in the slightly cooler air of outside. I held off as long as I could, but I was being boiled alive in there.

I looked around me quickly, my saber held ready. I saw nothing around, except the body of the creature I killed, tread marks in the sand showed where others had moved around.

I climbed down to the thing on the ground, looking closer at it. So it wasn't fully black, it had dark brown markings running along its exoskeleton. It was built like a centipede, only 10 feet long instead of a couple of inches. Each of its 'legs', which it had hundreds of, were armed with little spikes bent towards its body and I knew if it got stuck in something it would do a lot of damage.

It had four eyes, two on each side, and one dead center above its four pinchers. It had no eye lids and its eyes bulged out like tennis balls. The hole I blasted into its side took out half it's body, black liquid staining the bright sand around it.

I left it there, grabbing an army ration and a new bottle of water, and headed back up to my post on top of the ship. Once I finished choking down my food, I morphed into cobra, and began mindlessly chattering.

The second time I demorphed I could hear a buzzing sound coming behind me but I ignored it as I morphed again.

((Alright. Round three. I'm starting to think you guys don't love me anymore!))

My tongue flicked out and my senses picked up something hotter than the area around me. I flicked it out again, noticing it was moving.

((Oh no.)) I said softly. Quickly I started to demorph, once my hand emerged I grabbed the saber pointing it to that spot. Nothing but sand. I stared around looking for movement. Maybe I was just freaking out, or the heat was getting to me.

Slowly I relaxed taking one more look around before reaching for my water, as I took off the cap I heard something move, quickly I turned dropping the bottle as a creature dived out of the sand coming towards me. I fired the saber twice, only grazing it with one beam. I knocked it off course, coming down on the ground in front of me, rather then on top. It squirmed for a moment and I shot again, missing it as it moved. Damn it was fast.

It came towards me again, its four pinches clicking together, blue liquid coming from its mouth. I backed up, firing at it and tumbled off the other side of the fighter onto the ground. Cursing, I rolled over, aimed my saber, and the thing fell on top of me, motionless, black blood oozing out of a few holes along its body.

My feet quickly fell asleep as its weight cut off the circulation. I struggled, trying to push it off me, desperate to get off the ground. The sand under my hand vibrated and my heart thumped in panic. It never occurred to me to morph, I continued to try and push the creature off of me, its body only moving a little bit at a time.

From behind me I heard the another one of the creatures come out of the sand, I reached back and shot at it a few times. It dodged the blasts, distracting it long enough for me to pull my legs out. Pin and needles burst out from my toes up to my knees, but I rolled over anyways forcing myself into a kneeling position, firing at the new creature a few times. It screamed at me diving back into the sand.

"Damn, damn, damn-" I muttered over and over again, trying to climb back up onto the fighter, the highest point in this desert. As I reached the top I heard the creature break through the sand again, it's pinched clamping onto my foot. I screamed as it pulled me back onto the ground, two of its pincers attached to my ankle, the other two clamping and unclamping, like it was trying to chew. Black spots appeared over my vision from the pain, and I kicked at it with my other foot, aiming for its eyes.

I nailed the middle eye with my heel and it let go in pain. I scrambled around, my ankle bleeding as I searched for my saber. But it was too late, it dived forwards and clamped my leg in its pinchers. I kicked and kicked, I could feel the pincers slicing into my skin, blinding pain nearly paralyzing me.

It started to move back towards the hole it made, dragging me with it. I grabbed for something, anything, to hold myself in place grabbing nothing but hand fulls of sand. I twisted and turned, but the thing was relentless, clamping down on my leg harder a large 'crunch' sounding out as it broke my bone.

I could feel it pull my leg down into the hole after it, the only thing showing was its head and a small portion of its body.

For a moment I imagined hearing two blasts of a fighters weapons. My leg was released, residual heat flaming across my leg and I looked up just in time to watch one of the fighters blast by over top of me. I heard another blast from behind me, a scream from another creature echoing out. I caught my breath and quickly began to morph gorilla, fixing my leg.

((About time!)) I yelled when the fighters came over and landed near me. Both doors opened as I finished demorphing, and Jake and Ax stepped out.

Suddenly Ax dived at me, wrapping his arms around my neck. "Thank goodness you are alright." He whispered against my shoulder.

"Hey Marco." Jake nodded to me and I nodded back, he grinned "You look a little burnt."

"Shut up you! This place is horrible!" I exclaimed, tightening my arms around Ax.

"What is that thing anyways?" Jake asked, pointing to the creatures on the ground.

"I have no idea, and I really don't care." I grumbled.

Ax pulled away, looking down at it his hand still in mine. "Come on." he said finally, pulling me forwards towards his fighter. "Let's get you back to the ship."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

After a really long, cold shower I headed back out to Ax's sitting room. He handed me a steaming cup of coffee and I sat down beside him on one of the couches, Jake and Tobias beside me.

On the way back to Destiny I told them what happened to me, now it was their turn.

"I don't know what it was." Jake started with a shrug. "I turned just in time to see you fall, the ship turned after Ax and I simply shot. I must of hit the engines because it exploded."

"I don't think it was a Bug Fighter." Tobias said slowly. "I mean, they're pretty distinct. Nor was it Andalite, it was definitely something I've never seen before."

"We are pulling back into Z-Space in an hour or so, so hopefully whoever it was, we leave them behind." Ax added in and the others nodded.

"Well, whatever." I sighed, cradling my coffee in my hands. "Next time, one of you guys get shot down instead alright?"

Jake and Tobias laughed, saying their goodbyes before they left, saying they were going to let me rest.

When they were gone Ax shifted so he laid against me, and I wrapped my arm around him, careful not to spill my drink.

"Come now, you weren't worried about me now were you?" I asked, nudging him. "We've been in worse spots than that."

"I was not worried." He admitted. "At least not until I saw those creatures surrounding you."

"Yeah, you guys cut it a little close there." I teased getting a small chuckle out of him. We sat in silence as Destiny shifted back into Z-space.

"Sorry about the fighter." I said finally and Ax laughed.

"Well it was not your fault. I am very impressed there was not more damage."

"Hey! Was that a backhanded compliment? I swear it was!" I exclaimed, pretending to sound hurt.

"Peter told me about your car accidents. Pardon me if I was not expecting a clean landing."

I huffed at him, drinking the rest of my coffee I placed the empty cup on the table in front of me, leaning back, placing my feet on it and gathered Ax up in both arms. He sighed, settling down against my chest his ear over my heart.

I was dozing off when Ax shifted again. I watched him get to his feet and he grabbed my hands pulling me up.

"Come on Marco." He said softly. "Lets get you to bed."

((()))

For the next week, every scientist aboard Destiny asked questions about my couple of days on that planet. With the little detail I had the questions became very annoying after a couple of days. By the third day O'Neill finally told them all to back off, and questions were only fired at me when he was out of ear shot.

Tobias found this all amusing of course, so did Jake for that matter. They filled in details that I purposefully missed or making my story so elaborate almost every member of the crew had a different story from the next. One girl from Jessie's team was star struck. Tobias had told her I escaped from the creatures hive, barely making it out alive. Needless to say, the girl seemed to have developed a crush on me, which seemed to tick Ax off, and that I didn't mind that so much.

But as the week went by, they got bored with me and went back to their duties except for my own personal stalker. I didn't want to be mean and tell her to bug off, but I think Ax would do it for me soon enough, his patience was running thin with her, and I'll admit, it's a little fun watching him be jealous.

Now, us Animorphs and a few members of the crew were hanging out in the sitting room, Ax's star charts and a copy of the galaxy were spread out around the room. Ax sat beside me, scribbling away on a new map, charting where we had been so far.

Ax was shooting little glares to the girl next to me when he thought I wasn't looking, but sadly for him, he's not that subtle even Jake and Tobias noticed.

"Well," Jack sighed, stretching out in his chair. "At least we'll have lots of data to bring back to NASA."

"Whenever we get there." Al muttered and Jessie elbowed him in the side, he sighed, but fell silent.

I raised my hands. "Yeah, can I just put in: No more giant bugs!"

A high pitched giggle rang in my ear and I watched Ax scowl, ducking his head so his hair fell over his face.  
"Sure Marco. Whatever you want." Jake drawled, rolling his eyes at Jack and Al.

I took a quick look out of the window, a sickly yellow planet floating by at the moment. Al saw where I was looking and gave a small smile, "We can only run the engines for so long. True, we could run them longer than a week, but considering how far we need to go we need to keep jumping back into space whenever we can."

"Yes yes, I already know all of this." I waved him off. "Ax gives me this lecture every time we leave Z-space."

There was that giggle again.

Ax slammed his pen down, and turned towards her but was interrupted by O'Neill's voice coming through the speakers.

"I need you all to the bridge. NOW!"

We all stared at each other in shock, then as one got up and rushed to the bridge. The secondary team stepped aside as everyone took their stations.

"What is going on?" Ax asked.

"There's a ship out there." O'Neill said. "We noticed it a few minutes ago, but its just been sitting there."

"No contact?" Ax asked and was replied with a 'no'.

I could see it through the windshield, it was too far away to make any kind of detail.

"I'm not sure if turning around would have a been a good idea." O'Neill said.

"If they were going to shoot at us they would have done so already." Ax replied. "That ship is massive, it could destroy us in one shot."

"Just great." I said staring out at the white dot in the sky. "Lets hope they're friendly aliens."

Ax hummed moving over to my dad. "When we get close enough try and send them a message. Perhaps we can-"

"Ax-man." Tobias breathed.

In the center of the bridge a figure was standing. My first thought was human, because the woman standing in front of me looked exactly like one. A few differences like the white tattoo like markings that ran along the sides of her face. She was tall, her arms and legs longer than a normal humans. Her hair was pure white, almost touching the floor, and her eyes were bright red, almost glowing.

She looked around at us before she began to speak. Actually it sounded like she was singing, her voice soft, but as high as a soprano's. She looked at us again, before a calm smile appeared across her face.

"Perhaps you can understand me now." she said, and I heard her voice with my ears and in my head, just like thought-speak. "We saw your ship before. Who are you?"

"You guys were the ones who shot me down?" I exclaimed clamping my mouth shut, my teeth snapping as she turned to me.

"We saw you attacking the other's-" she looked at me curiously and I could feel my cheeks heat up.

"Oh no. That- that was just training."

The alien smiled, "Well, at least that fighter was un-maned."

"Who are you?" O'Neill demanded suddenly. She turned to him, giving him a patient smile.

"I believe I asked you first." She said simply.

"We are humans." Ax said, stepping forwards. She looked at him, her eyes searching before she answered.

"Humans? You are a long ways from home." She whispered, looking around at us.

"You know about us?" O'Neill asked her and she smiled again.

"Of course. The first planet to defeat the Yeerks without help from the Andalite fleet. Whispers have reached even this far through the galaxy."

She gazed around at us again, "My name is Solf, and my species is called the Anevda." One by one, we all introduced ourselves back, a few people a little uneasy, but Solf simply nodded to each person, a light smile stuck on her face.

"Are you friends with the Andalite's?" O'Neill asked and she shook her head.

"We are neither friends nor enemies. We know of the Andalite's, and perhaps they have heard whispers of us, but they are still young and have not traveled as far as we have."

I looked over at Ax, expecting a scowl, but he was looking at her with the same amazement as everyone else.

"I came to see if you were enemies, but I realize now you perhaps did not know you were following us." she continued, smiling at O'Neill. "Now that I know otherwise, I would like to ask how you came to be out here so far."

"A being called Drode dropped us here." Jake pipped up, and her face darkened.

"If you know who Drode is, then you must know his master?" Jake nodded and she scowled lightly. "That is troubling. If Crayak has his eye on you, you will be in for a difficult time."

"How do you-" Ax started, but I interrupted him.

"We are the ones who fought off the Yeerks." I said, gesturing to myself and the other Animorphs. "And we have also delt with Crayak and his minion."

She looked surprised, looking back over at Ax again, studying him.

"Perhaps you have some hope then." She said finally, turning to me.

"How do you know who Crayak is?" Ax asked her.

"Long ago, the Anevda used to worship the Ellimist as a God, when our civilization advanced, we realized otherwise, and are now aware of the games he and Crayak play."

"Can you help us?" Jake asked her. "The Andalite's think we attacked them, the whole fleet is looking for us, all because of Crayak."

She looked at him. "I can not change the Andalite's minds-"

"No, no." I said. "We are asking for help home."

She smiled sadly, "Unfortunately, I can not. You see, with all the planets the Anevda protect, our army is too thin spread, and we are in a war with an evil far greater than the Yeerks." Jake sighed, but she looked around at us again.

"You are treading dangerous air humans, and you are too primitive to deal with these dangers." She held her hand out to Ax, dropping a glowing stone into his hand. "We are willing to help you if you need, but I can not take you to back to your planet. I am sorry."

Ax studied the thing in his hand.

"You are familiar with thought-speak, this device will pick up on your thoughts. If you call for help, one of our ships will answer." She looked around again. "I truly am sorry I can not help you farther."

"It's nice to know we have friends out here." O'Neill sighed and she smiled at him.

"One more thing. The enemy the Anevda fight is called 'The One', a very powerful species that has the ability to absorbed your body and technology. Tread carefully my young friends."

She clasped her hands together, bowing to O'Neill, and disappeared. In the distance, we watched the Anevda ship's engines light up, and it disappeared, a swirl of colors was left behind.

"Aximili-?"

"I have never heard of the Anevda, nor 'The One." Ax said, still looking at the stone in his hand. "She is right, even though the Andalite's like to boast about how far in the galaxy they have explored, it really is not all that far, and the war with the Yeerks started off early in the exploration." He moved over, placing the stone beside the commanders chair.

"We need to be careful, pay close attention to all radars and sensors." O'Neill said, "And get us back into Z-space!"

Ax walked over to us looking a little uneasy.

"What's wrong?" I asked him and he shook his head.

"I do not know." he said slowly, turning to look at me. I stared at him a moment before nodding.

"You know, she never apologized for shooting me down."


	19. Chapter 19

AN: Thank you for the review! I love them xD

Chapter 19

The main crew was assembled in the kitchen, what was left of our wine set around, a few baked cakes and other small snacks we could afford was set out around the room.

Today marked one year out in space, and we were celebrating, sort of. No one mentioned how many more years we would be out here. I suppose it was more like a New Years eve party, since time was messed up on us.

A year out here, and already people were starting to fall apart, younger members of our team would get into fights with one another, to the point that members from the army had to step in.

Small affairs started popping up, trying to stay secret but you could tell when couples got into fights, and spats over jealousy became more and more common.

Maybe it was because we were used to hopeless situations, but the only ones who seemed less effected was me and the other Animorphs. Or maybe it was because my boyfriend wasn't entirely human and unnecessary fights, in his eyes, were just that: unnecessary.

I stood beside Ax, watching him laugh at my corny joke and looked passed him at the people gathered. Everyone was laughing, joking around with their friends, but you could see it in their eyes: the tension, and the stress.

Ax said something to me, which I missed, and he headed away going towards Jessie, Harry and Jack.

"Hey Marco." Sarah said, sliding up to me. My own little stalker girl, who I finally bothered to learn the name of. I'm not kidding when I say she's a stalker. It seems whenever Ax isn't around, she is. Everywhere I go, there she is. That might sound paranoid, but I can walk from one end of the ship to the other a few times and maybe see one person only a couple of times, Sarah I'll see multiple times. I'm serious, this girl is everywhere.

"Hi Sarah." I sighed. "Enjoying the party?"

She giggled, fluttering her eyes up at me. I suppose she really was pretty, her dirty blonde hair always tied up in a pony-tail, her eyes a bright hazel, more green than brown.

"Oh yes." she said, tapping my glass with hers and taking a big gulp from her glass. Great, stalker girl who is drunk.

"Well, that's great." I said, looking around for anyone to use as an excuse to slip away from her. "Look, I need to see Ax."

"Why do you like him?" She pouted, "He's weird."

"And that's why I like him." I responded, starting to walk away but she grabbed my arm.

"But why?" she had a whine to her voice now that grated my nerves. "He's weird, he thinks he's _so _much smarter than everyone else, and he's not even human."

"Alright, first off, he is smarter than everyone in this room , he is human, and three, leave me the fuck alone."

Her mouth fell open, and her eyes watered.

"Ah damn." I groaned. "Look, I love Ax, and I don't appreciate you trying to tell me why I shouldn't be with him, especially when I know he's told you to back off. Sarah, you're a nice girl, but I have absolutely no interest in you, what-so-ever." She stared at me, looking really hurt, before she dashed out of the room, a few tears falling from her eyes. I felt bad, but she needed to hear it I guess. Maybe now she'd leave me alone. I turned to head back to Ax pausing when I saw him looking at me, a small smile on his face, which grew wider as our eyes met. Yeah, it was worth it.

I walked over to him, and he held out an arm, wrapping it around my shoulders as he gave me a kiss, cat-calls whistled around us.

"Thank you." he whispered and I smiled.

"Only you, Aximili." I whispered back and was rewarded with another kiss.

"Alright, alright. Enough of the mushy stuff." Tobias grumbled, sliding between Ax and I so our arms wrapped around him instead of each other.

"Oh Tobias, are you feeling left out?" Ax cooed, and planted a big kiss on his cheek.

"You know Ax, that's a little weird." he laughed, wiping his cheek on his arm. For good measure, I leaned down and kissed him on the other cheek. "Dammit you weirdo's" he laughed again, hoping away from us.

"But you said you were feeling left out." I said innocently, taking a step towards him, he backed up a couple of steps, holding a hand out to me.

"Don't you dare Marco!" he said, a huge grin on his face.

"But Tobias!" I whined, taking another step, backing him against the counter. Ax laughed from behind me as Tobias looked around him, looking for something to hold me off with. As I reached forwards to grab him again, Jake grabbed the back of my shirt, pulling me away.

"Stop freaking him out Marco." he scolded and I pouted, but moved back to Ax, who was still chuckling.

"My hero." Tobias said, bowing to Jake, who took a half-hearted swing at him.

The four of us moved off from the group, filling our glasses before we went. We stood by the large window, the Z-space lighting up the air around us.

"One year gentlemen." I said raising my glass. "This has been a fun vacation." The others laughed, clicking their glasses to mine.

We sat there, looking around at everyone before Jake finally sighed, lowering his glass. "I don't get this."

"It's a party Jake." I replied but he shook his head.

"No, I mean- why bring us hundreds of thousands of light-years away from Earth? With the Andalite's after us, would it not make sense to have just left us where we were?"

"Unless having the Andalite's after us wasn't the goal." I pointed out.

"Then what is? It's been a year, don't you think something would have happened by now?"

"Why are you complaining?" I exclaimed, "A whole year and nothing has happened, be happy that's the way it is."

"The calm before the storm." Tobias muttered. I threw up my hand, shaking my head at them.

"Seriously guys? You're over analyzing things that haven't happened yet!'

Tobias looked at me, his eyes staring unblinkingly. "Maybe your just not analyzing enough?"

"Look, you really think I haven't thought all of this through?" I asked him, slightly annoyed, "The way I see it, nothing has happened yet, and it's not like we can be more prepared than we already are." I raised my glass again, "Just celebrate that, alright?"

Jake nodded with a sigh raising his glass to me.

I watched Jessie start to make her way towards us, a big, happy smile on her face when we were all suddenly knocked from our feet, a few people let out a scream, glasses and plates smashing to the floor.

I had just enough time to realize I was on the ground when alarms started ringing off through the ship. Beside me Ax scrambled to his feet.

"We are under attack!" He yelled to the crew and ran out of the room, just before another impact rocked the ship.

"You were saying?" Jake snarled at me, climbing to his feet helping me to mine. Members of the crew were already up and rushing out of the door, the alarms deafening.

By the time Jake , Tobias and I made it to the bridge, the main crew and the secondary were already there and everyone was yelling, trying to be heard over the alarms.

"What happened?" I yelled in Ax's ear, making him jump with surprise.

"It's the other Destiny, the one that attacked the Andalite's."

I looked up at the screen, and sure enough, a ship that looked almost exactly like ours was floating there.

"How did they get out here so fast?" Jake demanded and Ax shook his head.

"I do not know. It did some damage to our shields though, but has only taken those two shots."

The ship got closer until it was close enough to see details. The original assessment that it looked like Destiny was wrong; though the general shape and the colors were the same, the other ship looked like it had been patched together from other ships even its weapons looked different from ours.

Jennifer and Jack yelled that the engines were ready to fire.

"General! There's a transmission coming through." My dad announced, the screen lit up.

Gasps went around the room, and many heads turned back to us. I felt hands on my arm, looking over at Tobias who was swaying on his feet, as white as a ghost.

"Well, well. Look who I found." Rachel said, looking through at us, her blue eyes sparkling.

"No-" Jake breathed.

"The Animorphs.. How fun."

"Who are you?" I yelled at her and she laughed, showing her teeth, which instead of the flattened, slightly dull human teeth, were thin and pointed, with at least a hundred of them on the top and the bottom. Her mouth was red, like she had just bit into a piece of raw meat.

"Why Marco, don't you recognize me?" She laughed, her eyes staring mockingly at me.

"You're not Rachel!" I snapped.

"No, I suppose I'm not." She laughed again.

"We're not going to ask you again. Who are you?"O'Neill snapped, but 'Rachel' didn't turn her gaze away from us.

"Are you surprised little Animorphs?'" She giggled, we said nothing back. "Of course you are." Finally her eyes turned to O'Neill. "I am The One, and I was promised a prize. I am here to collect it."

"What do you want?" Jake demanded, his fists clenched closed beside him.

"Ah, now that's a good question." 'Rachel' cooed. "You see, I was asked to do a little job, I did said job, and am now here to collect my bounty." She smiled again, as if that explained everything.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Drode hired you?" I spat, and her creepy smile widened.

"Very good Marco. You were always smarter than you let on." I felt my veins freeze as her blue eyes stared into mine.

"Sir." Kevin pipped up suddenly. "You should see-"

"Why did you attack the Andalites?" O'Neill demanded, but she ignored him again, clapping her hands together.

"Well, I wont keep you. I heard you have a long ways to go, and I have business to attention to."

Jake and I exchanged a look.

"Sir-!" Kevin yelled again.

"Get those sabers ready." Jake shouted to the crew.

"Oh no need for that." Rachel laughed. "Just watch."

The sound of metal twisting sounded out, my dad letting out a yell as he was thrown across the bridge. His consol had literally come alive, wires busted out of their confines, twisting and snapping in the air, sparks of electricity snapping out of the ends. The metal seemed to melt, folding back on itself, making the opening larger, and the back of the computer, the part leaning against the wall, was a swirling white, just like Z-Space.

"Shit-" Someone said, maybe it was me. A saber went off from on the soldiers, a couple pieces of wire falling to the ground, but it didn't stop them, they twisted through the air, reaching out longer and longer like they were searching for something. All the while, Rachel laughed over the monitors.

A few members of the crew got caught by the wires, the smell of burning fabric, hair, and skin soon filled the air.

All the wires suddenly changed direction, and Jake got thrown back, slamming into the wall across the room, I ducked as a few snapped over my head, a yelled filled my ears as the wires pulled taunt, sliding back towards the destroyed consol. I looked back, following the lines whose ends were wrapped around Ax's ankles, pulling him to the floor and towards the gaping hole.

"No!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet, rushing after him, Tobias behind me.I dived, grabbing his hands, Tobias' weight on top of me. "Hold on Ax!" I yelled at him, his hands clinging to mine, the wires were overpowering us. I heard a few people scramble around me, but they would be too late. Ax looked at me through desperate, terrified eyes, when he was ripped from my hands, and disappeared through the white hole.

A shock wave sent us flying, and 'Rachel's' laugh echoed in our ears.

"Thank you! Hope to see you soon!" She said mockingly, and transmission was cut off.

"Don't let them get away!" O'Neill yelled. I held my head, a few drops of blood falling into my eyes from where my head hit one of the consols.

Jennifer scrambled to her feet, but another small shockwave rumbled the ship, as The One took off into Z-Space taking Ax with them.


	20. Chapter 20

AN: Thank you to my reviewers, sorry I didn't personally respond, just finished college, moved and looking for a job... Well, I'm just busy.

Anyways, here's chapter 20; with a few more revisions, this story only has a few more chapters left ^^

Chapter 20

I felt Jake move me over to one of the empty chairs as the crew tried to work out what happened, everyone suck in a state of shock and fear.

Dimly I heard O'Neill call for the medics.

"What happened Jake?" I asked him, my thoughts starting to get fuzzy.

"Marco man. Maybe you should morph." Jake said, shaking my shoulders slightly.

"What happened to Ax?"

"Morph Marco!" Jake screamed at me.

"That's it, I'm contacting-" O'Neill.

Suddenly, morphing seemed like a very good idea and I picked a random animal I had floating in my DNA and started to morph slowly. The more I changed, the more my head cleared, until I was staring around at everyone through black and white vision, and I aloud the overwhelming happiness of the dog wash over me for a moment before I demorphed again.

The medics had arrived, cleaning up cuts and burns people had gotten. My dad was handed an ice pack for his head, his wrist being bandaged up.

O'Neill was standing beside Jake, looking around impatiently. "Where is-?" He started but was interrupted by the figure that appeared in front of him.

"Solf!"

"O'Neill?" She said softly. "I did not think you would need my help so soon."

"We were attacked. By The One." he said sharply, and her red eyes widened slightly.

"Oh dear." she whispered. "Forgive me but, how are you still here?"

"He took Ax." I said said. "Why would he take him?"

She looked around the bridge. "Ax? Aximili?" I nodded and she looked concerned.

"What is going on?" O'Neill demanded, and she held up a hand to him.

"The One is a race from a planet that was long destroyed. They had enough ships for small crews, that scattered around the galaxy, looking for a new planet to inhabit. In their journey they made many friends who shared their technology and secrets, felling sorry for The One, who were a very helpless looking species at the time.

"Over the years, The One found that they had a natural ability to- absorb other beings, both body, mind and memories and their physical form changes into the one they most recently absorbed. Much like the Andalite technology, although they need the whole body, and the change is permanent until their next victim."

I felt light headed all of a sudden, Jake grabbing me and slowly lowering me into the chair. Solf sent me a glance before she looked back to O'Neill.

"The One slowly became power hungry, taking those who once called them friends and allies, combining their knowledge and developed technology that acting the same."

"How is that possible?" Jessie breathed in shock.

"It is very complicated." Solf said and Jessie looked put out. "Anyways, many years ago, the Anevda traveled to many planets, even your own, and found a connection with each one. Usually a mythical creature, humans called them shapeshifters, thought many of your cultures had different names. We found your world very early on in your species development, so it is likely The One did not take much interest, and most likely have not been there in years.

"At first, we thought they had died out, as their history predates even my race. Until they came into our solar system. We had three planets that could sustain life, now only my home planet remains. We managed to drive them out, but they are like a disease, spreading everywhere through this galaxy, even into ones beyond here."

"Why Ax?" I whispered.

"As odd as it may sound, The One can not reach the Andalite homeworld, another race, an ally to the Anevda, fights against them and helps protect their solar system, though the Andalite's do not know that. They have gone blissfully unaware that there are other dangers outside of the Yeerks, but I am not sure how long that will last. Aximili just happens to have the knowledge from two very intelligent races, most likely that is why he was chosen."

"Is there anyways we can get him back?" Tobias asked softly.

"I do not know the answer to that question." Solf said quietly. "The Anevda have not lost people to The One, therefore, we have not had need to try."

I placed my head in my hands, I could feel Jakes hand on my shoulder, tightening his grip a bit.

"Just because you haven't done it, doesn't mean it can't be done? Right?" Tobias asked her again, his voice strained.

"I do not know." She said softly. She looked around at us, a pensive look on her face. "I can do one thing. I was on my way to meet with our allies, something has come up that needs my attention. Perhaps they could have information for you. The thing is, I can not bring your full crew."

O'Neill thought for a moment before he turned to Jake. "The Animorphs are the only ones who can go."

"Done." Jake said, and I jumped to my feet, Tobias coming up beside me.

Solf smiled gesturing for us to stand beside her. "I will bring you back when we are finished. I will find you again O'Neill, just continue on your journey home."

"Bring him back General." O'Neill said to Jake as a white light surrounded us and we were suddenly facing an almost pure white wall, glowing lightly from a light behind it. Solf was standing in front of us.

"With our engines it will take us only a couple of days to get to where we need to go. Come with me." she gestured again, leading us down the corridor, her movements fluid, her pale green dress flowing around her.

She led us down the halls, passing a few Anevda along the way, who looked at us curiously, but none stopped us.

She led us into a room that had a few chairs and tables scattered about. I sat in a chair she pointed out to us, noticing my toes couldn't reach the ground.

She came back, four glasses on a tray which she set in front of us. Each one was filled with a different colored liquid, she placed a red one in front of me, a yellow in front of Tobias, and a blue in front of Jake. She took the last one which looked like it was filled with water, and sat down in a chair.

"Drink first, and then we will talk."

Hesitantly, I brought my glass to my lips taking a small sip. A warm feeling rushed through me, the heart wrenching fear that was trying to bubble up on me subsided a bit, my thoughts becoming more clear.

I looked up at Jake and Tobias who were both looking at their drinks in amazement. Solf laughed lightly, like bells in the wind. "It will not harm you do not worry. Just something to help your nerves."

I took a bigger sip, feeling better.

"Where are we going?" Jake asked, taking another drink as well.

"We are going to meet the Kelbrids."

Jake chocked, putting his hand to his mouth so he wouldn't spit out the drink.

"I thought they were enemies of the Andalite's?" I asked. "They wont be happy to see us."

She waved a hand at me. "The Kelbrids use that treaty with the Andalite's to keep The One from them. You must understand, with Aximili's knowledge of both the Andalite world and the Human world, The One may go after your planets, the Kelbrid need to know of this."

Jake sent Tobias and me a look. If it helped Ax, we would do anything.

"Hang on." I said suddenly, looking at her. "How do you know about Ax?"

She smiled. "I can see the energy given off by the morphing powers when they are active. Though he can not return to his normal form, his body still gives off the energy. Just like you." She said, nodding to Tobias, "Though it is odd that you are not in your true form."

Tobias shifted. "I got stuck in a morph in our first mission against the Yeerks, the Ellimist gave them back to me after I did him a favor, but my 'true form' is the morph."

"I see." Solf said, nodding. She stood clearing away our empty glasses before sitting back down.

"There is one more thing I want to tell you. The Kelbrids have lost members of their race to The One. Now, whether or not they have managed to get those people back I am not sure. The Kelbrids became a secretive race after The One attacked them."

"Understandable." Jake sighed, "The Andalite's had the same problem when the Yeerks betrayed them."

"They may not seem all that welcoming, but please, do not let that deter you. They will give you the information you seek, they just may make you ask a few times."

"So you mean beg?" I asked and she smiled at me, not saying anything.

"Come." she said, standing up. "I have a place you can rest."

The quarters she showed us were spacious, and everything was white. The living room had three doors with beds.

"Rest now. I will send someone when you have awoken." She bowed to us again before leaving.

It seemed that the rush from the drink was wearing off, weariness falling over me. I looked at the other two, and we stared at each other before nodding, heading off.

I collapsed in the bed, giving one last thought towards Ax before falling into a dreamless sleep.

AN: As usual, please leave a review?


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